10/06/2026
Today, a major new report launches in Parliament: Wildlife and Countryside Link's Hidden in the Haul, the first to lay bare the true scale of what UK commercial fishing kills by accident. It's the fish that often get forgotten. Over a thousand endangered Atlantic salmon a year in a single fishery alone. More than 120 tonnes of Critically Endangered skate and porbeagle hauled up and thrown back dead. Smooth-hound and dogfish caught in their thousands, unmanaged and uncounted.
Take bass. A rule meant to protect it - capping how much of a catch can be bass, recently loosened from 5% to 10% - can end up rewarding boats for landing more low-value smooth-hound and dogfish just to legitimise a valuable haul. That's not sustainable, and it's not just. It's anglers and fish that pay the price.
The Angling Trust is proud to stand behind this report, and we're at the front of the fight to fix it: cameras on every commercial boat, rules properly enforced, and bycatch of every protected fish taken seriously in how our fisheries are managed.
Give it a read. We'll be in Parliament today urging MPs to take action to tackle bycatch - especially for the sake of forgotten fish.
Read the report:https://www.wcl.org.uk/docs/hidden_in_the_haul.pdf
Read our Head of Marine, Hannah Rudd's column for Oceanographic Magazine, The Forgotten Fish: https://oceanographicmagazine.com/features/the-forgotten-fish-what-the-uk-is-killing-by-accident/
