During the 11th session of EIFAC in Stavanger and the formation of the COPLAKE (Cooperative research program on lake fisheries management) group within frame of Subcommission I, studies on gear efficiency and gear selectivity were identified as an important field of interest. This lead to the formation of a gear selectivity group during the 12th session of EIFAC in Budapest. Members from 12 European nations declared their intention to cooperate in this group.
It was felt that selectivity influences all stock assessment methods to a considerable extent. However, it is seldom taken into consideration on account of the lack of available data. The discussions in the group further revealed that investigations on the selectivity of certain fishing gear have been carried out in many European countries but because of language barriers these publications have not become known by the European scientific community. It seemed therefore that one of the priority tasks of the new founded group was to collect information on these scattered publications and to make their essentials generally available in one of the official EIFAC-languages. A first collection of titles was presented to the meeting of the group during the 13th session of EIFAC in Aarhus whose discussions also led to general agreement on a format which would bring out the essential information in the publication. The points to be considered were:
- Title: translated into one of the official EIFAC languages
- Fishing gear: material, meshsize (method of determination), yarnsize, hanging coefficient, color, stiffness, floats and weights
- Fishing conditions: weather, time of day and year, fishing place, effort, mode of operation
- Species fished: (range of length, of girth, of weight, food, behaviour)
- Bycatch: of other species (name of species, percentage of total catch)
- Selective effects: (modal length, selection range, trends)
- Type of water: (surface area, depth, temperature and oxygen conditions, visibility, situation of exploitation by commercial or sport fishing)
- General remarks:
Abstracts on selectivity publications were contribution to the present collection by
J. Libosvarsky, Czechoslovakia (L)
J. Nielsen, Denmark (N)
K. Salojärvi, Finland (S)
E. Dahm, Germany, F.R. (D)
H. Löffler, Germany, F.R. (Lö)
W.L.T. van Densen, The Netherlands (v.D.)
T. Qvenild, Norway (Q)
Mrs. L. Swierzowska, Poland (SW)
J. Vostradovsky, Czechoslovakia (V)
O. Enderlein, Sweden (E)
each of whom reviewed the literature of his own country. I wish to express my sincere gratitude for their work. We all are aware of the fact that this collection is far from complete but hope that it might serve to stimulate further contributions. We hope that such additional contribution can be incorporated into an amended version of this bibliography which would contain the wealth of so far unknown publications on selectivity of inland water fishing gear in Europe. Such a document would also reveal the gaps in knowledge and might lead to fruitful joint international exercises similar to the Intercalibration Working Group. Author and subject indices have been added to facilitate the search for particular information.
Hamburg 1987
E. Dahm
