May 5, 2023 — The largest deployment of on-demand, or “ropeless” fishing gear in the U.S. region of New England recently concluded with up to 30 federally permitted lobster and Jonah crab vessels fishing waters closed to traditional trap and vertical-line setups.
The collaboration between the National Marine Fisheries Service, its Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and southern New England pot and trap fishermen is an effort to test a potential long-term solution to prevent whale entanglements. Participating fishermen were allowed 10 trawls each, using different designs of on-demand gear, activated by acoustic signals for retrieval, in federal waters of the South Island Restricted Area and the Massachusetts Restricted Area. Testing ran from 1 February to 30 April under an exempted fishing permit issued to the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center.