Seafood Choice | Seafood Guide | Sustainable Seafood | Troubled Seas | Fishing Methods
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Fishing methods that are used in Malaysia:

    
Trawling
Gillnetting
Blast Fishing
Cyanide fishing

Hook and lining
Traps and pots

 

 
 
    Trawling      
   

Trawling is the most widely used fishing method in Malaysia and is principally the towing of nets behind boats. Trawling is used to catch both midwater schooling fish, where cone shaped nets are towed in the water column; and to catch bottom dwelling fish and invertebrates such as prawns and crab. Bottom trawlers drag giant weighted nets along the seafloor and indiscriminately rip up or scoop out everything in their path including ancient coral forests, gardens of anemones and entire fields of sea sponges. These areas are often populated with slow growing deep sea fish and soft corals, which are especially slow to recover from repeated trawling.
 
Deep sea trawler
 
                           
Trawler boat
  
   

 

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  Gillnetting      
 

A gillnet is a curtain of netting that hangs in the water at various depths, suspended by a system of floats and weights, or anchors. The netting is almost invisible to fish as they swim into the gillnet. The mesh spaces are large enough for a fish's head to pass through, but not its body. As the fish tries to back out, its gills are entangled in the net.

 
 
    The size of a gillnet's mesh determines the type of fish it will catch.Small mesh can catch small fish like sardines. Larger mesh can entangle fish such as salmon and cod, while allowing smaller species to pass through.
    
   
Gillnets entangle large numbers of marine mammals and sea turtles in addition to other marine life,resulting in a significant amount of bycatch. Habitat damage can occur when gillnets anchored to the seafloor are hauled in and become tangled on structures such as coral and rocky bottoms.
   
Gill net
   

 

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Blast fishing  

Blast fishing is a practice using dynamite to bomb large areas of reef and collect the subsequent dead fish floating in the surface water. It is an extremely quick and effective way of collecting reef fishes however the process inherently destroys stony corals and kills fish and invertebrates in a large surrounding area.

The resulting changes may lead to a decrease in the diversity of species through habitat loss or through changes in predator-prey dynamics.

 
Not only is blast fishing illegal in Malaysia but it is also economically costly in comparison to the long term benefits offered to the region by tourism and coastal protection.
 
Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Jeffords (http://www.reefbase.org)
 
Bottle contains explosive sediment used for blast-fishing.
 
Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Jeffords (http://Photo courtesy of Marc Kochzius (http://www.reefbase.org)
 
Damaged coral head due to blasting
 

 

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Cyanide fishing  
Cyanide fishing is becoming widespread throughout Southeast Asia as the live reef fish trade booms. The practice involves using cyanide or other poisons to stun large reef fish underwater so they can be caught alive and sold to the restaurant industry for lucrative prices. The poisons however, kill the larvae of many coral reef organisms and also coral polyps which leads to coral bleaching.  
 
Cyanide fishing
  

 

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Hook and Lining
  

Hook-and-line fishermen use a pole (rod) and fishing line with one to several hooks. Handliners don’t use a pole—they simply hold a line in their hand. To attract fish, hook and liners use artificial lures or bait, “jigging” or jerking the line to simulate the motion of smaller fish. Sometimes they toss baitfish into the water to start a feeding frenzy among the fish. The catch is hauled in manually or with a mechanized reel.

Hook and liners target a variety of fish, ranging from open ocean swimmers, like tuna and mahi mahi, to bottom dwellers, like cod.Hook and lining is an environmentally responsible fishing method
Fishermen can quickly release unwanted catch from their hooks since lines are reeled in soon after a fish takes the bait

 

  
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Traps and pots    
Traps and pots are submerged wire or wood cages that attract bottom dwelling fish and hold them alive until fishermen return to haul in the gear. Traps and pots may or may not be baited, and they usually lie on the bottom—either singly or in a row. A rope runs from the trap or pot to a buoy floating at the surface, so fishermen can locate their gear.

Most traps and pots are environmentally responsible, but have issues too.
Traps may damage seafloor habitats when large ocean swells and tides bounce the gear around. Hauling in a row of traps may also drag the cages along the seafloor, causing damage.

 
 
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