Unreported Catch

Unreported catch is fish taken but not declared, or misdeclared, to the competent national authority or the relevant RFMO, the U in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing as defined by the FAO 2001 IPOA-IUU. It includes catch hidden to evade quota, discards not logged, and the largely unrecorded removals of small-scale and subsistence fisheries. Unreported catch biases the catch time series that drives stock assessment, so true fishing mortality is underestimated; reconstruction studies have put global catch well above the official FAO total. Countermeasures include the FAO Port State Measures Agreement (2016), catch documentation schemes, vessel monitoring systems, and onboard observers.