August 28, 2014 — When fishermen are at sea to catch monkfish, fluke or other commercial seafood, much larger fish can unintentionally wind up in their nets. Hauling in sand tiger sharks and Atlantic sturgeon can be particularly problematic—not only are they big, they are protected by strict regulations.
Researchers from the University of Delaware and Delaware State University are developing an innovative daily fishing forecast—similar to a weather report—that could help watermen avoid accidentally catching sharks and sturgeon as bycatch.
"Based on environmental observations in real-time, we are going to make probability predictions of those two species to give another layer of information to fishermen," said Matt Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography in the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (CEOE).
Atlantic sturgeon are endangered south of New England, with populations dwindling and harvesting prohibited under a government-regulated recovery plan. Sand tiger sharks are also illegal to catch and were identified as a "species of concern" by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 1997. Gear modifications and fishery restrictions have helped reduce, but not end, bycatch.
To create the fishing forecast, researchers are crunching huge amounts of oceanographic and biological data with supercomputers to look for connections between environmental conditions and migration patterns.
Delaware State University's Dewayne Fox already has a complex system in place for following fish movement offshore Delaware in what is one of the most heavily instrumented areas in North America. Fox and Oliver will examine nearly a decade's worth of information collected there from sharks and sturgeon tagged with tracking devices for previous research efforts.
Read the full story at Phys.org