if they are thrown back into the sea discarded they do not survive with rare exceptions so although they may conceivably provide food for some other species they do not help the conservation of their own species nor do they contribute to satisfying market demand for fish so more fish than are needed for this are caught rather than throw them into the sea a vessel may hope to land them illegally or transfer them to an intermediary who will land them in a port outside the national or eu jurisdiction one is that they are not wasted and the other is that they are recorded the disadvantage is that there is some economic incentive to overfish which seems counterproductive the norwegian view is that allowing discards while penalising landings provides an economic incentive to systematically fish for large and higher priced fish and systematically discard unwanted fish socalled high grading however the eu did introduce a ban on high grading in the north sea in furthermore a vessel s record of overfishing can be monitored and the economic incentive removed in the case of persistent offenders