Welcoming Understanding the Scale and Impacts of Marine Animal Entanglement in the Scottish Creel Fishery

That the Parliament welcomes the report published by NatureScot, as part of the Scottish Entanglement Alliance, titled Understanding the scale and impacts of marine animal entanglement in the Scottish creel fishery; acknowledges the role of the creel fishing industry in tackling entanglements, and notes that interviews were conducted with 159 commercial creel fishers to find out about their experiences of marine animal entanglement between 2008 and 2018; recognises that almost half of fishers had experienced at least one entanglement in the last 10 years, and that 146 marine animal entanglements had occurred, of which the main species reported were minke whale and basking shark; regrets what it understands to be the serious impact of these incidents on humpback whales, minke whales, basking sharks and dolphins in Scottish waters; welcomes the fishers' willingness to resolve the issue, and urges all stakeholders to work together and pursue the recommendations in the report and to solve this issue.