FAQs

Q: Who are the people working on this project?

We are a group of scientists based out of Blue Ocean Institute and Duke University Center for Marine Conservation.

• Larry Crowder
• Rebecca Lewison
• Andy Read
• Pat Halpin
• Wallace J Nichols
• Carl Safina

• Andre Boustany
• Tara Cox
• Jeff Moore
• Michelle Sims
• Bryan Wallace
• Ramunas Zydelis

• Sara McDonald

• Daniel Dunn
• Connie Kot

• Rhema Bjorkland
• Shaleyla Kelez

We are engaging collaborators in a global network working towards an improved understanding of fisheries and its associated bycatch of marine mammals, seabirds, and sea turtles while promoting sustainable fisheries.  Our goal is to establish collaborations among scientists through data sharing, analytical support and joint assessments of bycatch across taxa and regions.  By doing this, we will be able to highlight problems and implement solutions to bycatch not only regionally, but also globally. We are working to support a range of regional activities in our areas of interest, including workshops on bycatch analyses and assessment, capacity building technical training, and facilitating communication and strengthening connection among the bycatch research community. We are also working with partner organizations to create a mitigation fund that can support bycatch mitigation projects.

Q: What is the timescale of the project?

The project is planned for an initial three year period beginning in July 2005 and ending June 2008. 

Q: Why should I participate?

Individual efforts contribute to improving our collective understanding of bycatch. However, we feel it is only through collaboration and coordination that we can achieve a regional and then global perspective of bycatch across taxa and gear types. This approach will be most effective in creating management strategies to reduce bycatch and recover threatened species.

Q: If I contribute data, what will I get in return?

Collaboration will grant you the opportunity to utilize the collective abilities of the Project GloBAL team and collaborators from other regions in integrated cross-taxa, geospatial, and population dynamic analyses: statistical modeling, capacity building through collaborative grant writing, access to a global bycatch forum, and our oceanographic data.

Data from collaborators will be used according to the terms of individual agreements with data providers.  No data will be redistributed under any circumstance and contributors will be consulted about each product resulting from their data. Products, such as publications, proceedings or reports, will display only aggregated results with full respect to authorship and proprietary rights. Together with collaborators, we will develop Terms of Use Agreements, which we expect to be similar to existing precedents (e.g. Tracking Ocean Wanderers coordinated by BirdLife International or OBIS-Seamap). We hope that individual data holders will see the advantages of being able to interpret their data in the larger, global context.

Q: What kind of technical help will be offered?

Our technical skills include statistical modeling, marine geospatial analysis, population dynamics, and evaluation of mitigation experiments.  We have conducted and are conducting similar analyses using data available in the US, in the North Pacific and in the North Atlantic.  

Q: Who are potential collaborators?

Project GloBAL would like to collaborate with researchers, NGO representatives, government employees, or anyone else actively engaged in studies of fisheries bycatch, marine conservation or fisheries management.