Interactions with fishing gear remain the most significant threat to marine mammals globally. From the poles to the tropics, serious injury and mortality of individual marine mammals continues in even some of the most well scrutinized fisheries, leading to population declines and recent and imminent extinctions. The Yangtze River dolphin is gone; and the vaquita, Maui’s dolphin, North Atlantic right whale all face extinction from interactions with fishing gear. While these interactions can be pervasive where marine mammal populations overlap with fishing activity, entanglement in lost or discarded gear reaches almost all marine mammal populations. Further, some species have learnt to take advantage of foraging opportunities around fisheries and aquaculture, posing entanglement risks as well as the cultural spread of risky behaviour. Habitat modification and fish stock declines can lead to ecological changes, both of which can indirectly impact marine mammal populations. Interactions with fishing gear can also result in devastating animal welfare outcomes.

Approaches to reduce fisheries-related marine mammal mortality include measures that aim to change human behaviour (Marine Protected Areas, spatial and temporal fishing closures, incentives for altered gear use, development of alternative sources of income), the nature of the interactions (the use of bycatch reduction devices and other fishing gear modifications), or animal behaviour (the use of acoustic deterrents devices). While a combination of these approaches has been successful in some instances, obtaining adequate information on impacted populations, maintaining reliable reporting of interactions, establishing adequate governance and enforcement, sourcing affordable mitigation technologies, and recognizing the cultural importance of certain species and fisheries, all remain important conservation and management challenges. 

Seeking solutions to these compounding impacts ties together topics such as acoustics, animal welfare, behaviour, conservation, distribution and habitat use, education, health, human dimensions, policy development, population biology and taxonomy. 

In 2024, in Perth, Western Australia, we hope to:

• identify and communicate actions to reduce fishing related marine mammal mortality,  
• provide an opportunity for management agencies and individuals responsible for marine mammal entanglement responses to upskill, 
• support capacity building of Indigenous and developing country participants through skill-based training, workshops and meeting facilitation, 
• bring together scientists, managers, policymakers and Traditional Owners for meaningful information exchange and collaborative opportunities.

Our aims relate directly to the Society for Marine Mammalogy mission statement “to promote the global advancement of marine mammal science and contribute to its relevance and impact in education, conservation and management” and specifically address the 2019 Barcelona declaration goal of “using science, education and policy to reduce the deaths of marine mammals in fishery interactions.” We envision the outcomes of the conference to be closely connected to the identified key actions (i.e., reducing marine megafauna bycatch and incidental mortality through entanglements and reducing their competition with fisheries) for achieving the United Nations Sustainability Goal 14, Life Below Water.