Saving Seafood

North Carolina: Working group is confident it’s found ways to cut down on shrimp bycatch

May 15, 2018 — An industry work group will tell the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission on Thursday that it has found a way to modify nets to significantly reduce the bycatch of finfish and other species during shrimp trawling, one of the state’s largest fishing activities.

North Carolina has a long history of battling the bycatch of juvenile fish, sharks and turtles that a shrimp trawl can capture, in 1992 becoming the first state to require a bycatch reduction device. A 2009 study by N.C. Marine Fisheries biologist Kevin Brown found that more than 100 species were included in bycatch, with Atlantic croaker accounting for 25 percent and spot accounting for 7 percent.

“Bycatch has been an issue for a long time. It always seems like good things happen when people get together and start focusing on it,” said Scott Baker, a N.C. Sea Grant fisheries specialist who was part of the working group.

The Marine Fisheries Commission created the current 12-member working group — including six fishermen and four netmakers — in 2014 as part of its management plan for shrimp, giving them three years to find a way to reduce bycatch by an additional 40 percent beyond the federally mandated 30 percent. Now, the group will tell the commission, it has crafted four sets of gear that meet the target and is recommending the commission consider requiring shrimpers in the Pamlico Sound to use some of the devices.

“We’re basically twice (the reductions) the federal requirement are,” Brown said.

Read the full story at the Wilmington Star

 

North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission To Consider Changes To Shrimp Trawling Industry

May 15, 2018 — The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission plans to discuss and possibly vote on new gear requirements in the shrimp trawl fishery at their quarterly business meeting in New Bern on Wednesday and Thursday.

A three-year study identified four new gear configurations that reduce finfish bycatch by at least 40 percent.  The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, NOAA Fisheries and N.C. Sea Grant worked with commercial fishermen and local net makers to test 14 different trawl net configurations.

“Each time that we met, they would define what gears to be tested and, you know, as the three-year process went on, we started seeing some devices that showed more promise and we started focusing our efforts on those type of devices.”

Kevin Brown, gear development biologist with the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries says nearly 314,000 pounds of fish and shrimp were sampled during the study.

Read the full story at WTEB

 

JERRY SCHILL: Kinston authors’ proposal would hurt North Carolinians

March 21, 2016 — The following is an excerpt of a Letter-to-the-Editor written by Jerry Schill, President of the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

In response to a letter to the editor, “Thoughts on marine fisheries,” Wednesday, March 16, I offer the following comments. It should be noted that the Kinston authors sent the letter to several media outlets.

On the subject of shrimp trawling, the writers fail to acknowledge the many studies done by researchers over the years that have documented bycatch associated with this fishery and that despite decades of trawling, overall benthic productivity is dramatically increased. They also ignore the efforts by commercial fishermen to work proactively to reduce bycatch. Those studies began in the late 1980s and resulted with bycatch reduction devices in shrimp trawls. Currently, even though North Carolina is ahead of federal requirements to reduce bycatch, there is cooperative research ongoing to reduce it even further.

According to Kevin Brown, a gear development biologist with the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, biologists and fishermen were amazed how effective the test devices have been. “I am pleasantly shocked at where we are,” he stated at a recent workshop of a bycatch reduction team that includes state biologists, net makers, boat owners, shrimp boat captains and Sea Grant. It should also be noted that nearly 50% of the Pamlico Sound is already off limits to shrimp trawling due to the status of primary or secondary nursery areas, which were so designated with the support of the North Carolina Fisheries Association many years ago.

Read the full letter at the Carteret County News-Times

Devices to Keep Fish Out of North Carolina Shrimp Nets Prove Surprisingly Effective

February 15, 2016 — Shrimpers and biologists surprised the experts last summer by using modified trawl nets that drastically reduced the amount of popular fish caught and discarded.

The nets were fitted with a variety of devices beyond what is already required, including “spooker cones” that scare away fish before they enter the net, additional escape openings called fisheyes, and tailbags with larger mesh. The tailbag is where the catch collects at the end of the net.

The test trawls gathered 77 tons of fish and shrimp. The most effective test nets were fitted with two fisheyes and a tailbag with a mesh width of 1 7/8 inches. That net caught 211 pounds of shrimp and 183 pounds of fish.

Brown called that a stunning result because bycatch is typically triple the amount of shrimp. Some estimates put bycatch at four to five times the shrimp haul.

The experimental net produced another surprise: It caught more shrimp than the control net, which had no bycatch reduction devices.

Biologists and fishermen were amazed how effective the test devices were, said Kevin Brown, a gear development biologist with the Division of Marine Fisheries.

“I am pleasantly shocked at where we are,” he said.

The shrimping industry is under pressure to reduce bycatch, the unintended entrapment of highly regarded marine species, including sea turtles. The trawl nets are pulled behind the boat near the bottom of the sound.

Devices that deflect turtles and help fish avoid or escape the nets have been required for years, but the amount of bycatch is still about three times that of the targeted seafood of shrimp. Typically, the bycatch fish are juveniles not fit for market and are discarded overboard.

Read the full story at the Virginian-Pilot