What does "bycatch" mean?

Any fish (or other creatures) that are not targeted as a catch but are unintentionally caught, and often discarded back into the sea.

What is a synonym for "bycatch"?

Common synonyms include: by catch, by-catch, trash fish.

Bycatch

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Any fish (or other creatures) that are not targeted as a catch but are unintentionally caught, and often discarded back into the sea. countable, uncountable
"Some offer him bags of bycatch—fish too small or net-mangled to sell, rays and seahorses few will want, and so on."
2
unwanted marine creatures that are caught in the nets while fishing for another species wordnet
3
Any person, animal, or thing, captured unintentionally on camera or film. countable, uncountable

Verb

1
To catch unintentionally while fishing for something else. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

by catch by-catch trash fish

Example

More examples

"Pacific leatherbacks face significant threats from entanglement and/or hooking in fisheries (bycatch), direct harvest - including eggs and adults - coastal development, pollution, marine debris, disease and climate change."

Etymology

From by- + catch.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.