ICES - Answer to Special request on pulse trawl electrical fishing gear

The European Commission has requested ICES to evaluate the possible effect of the use of pulse-trawl electrical fishing gear to target plaice and sole in beam-trawl fisheries:

1. What change in fishing mortality could be expected following the adoption of such gear in the commercial fishery, assuming unchanged effort measured in KW-days at sea?
2. What effect would such a widespread introduction have in terms of (i) the mixture of species caught; (ii) the size of fish caught?
3. What, if any, effects would such introduction have on non-target species in the marine ecosystems where this gear was deployed?

This response deals with questions 2 and 3. Due to resource constraints ICES has not been able to finish the response to question 1.