Rope Grid: a new grid design to further reduce fin fish bycatch in the Gulf of Maine pink shrimp fishery

Published source details He P. & Balzano V. (2011) Rope Grid: a new grid design to further reduce fin fish bycatch in the Gulf of Maine pink shrimp fishery. Fisheries Research, 111, 100-107.
Share Tweet Email

Actions

This study is summarised as evidence for the following.

	Action	Category
	Use a different design or configuration of size-sorting escape grid/system in trawl fishing gear (bottom and mid-water) Action Link

Use a different design or configuration of size-sorting escape grid/system in trawl fishing gear (bottom and mid-water)

A replicated, paired, controlled study in 2009 of a seabed fishery in the Gulf of Maine, Atlantic Ocean, USA (He & Balzano 2011, same experimental set-up as He & Balzano 2012 and He & Balzano 2013) found that using a different (new) type of size-sorting escape grid in a shrimp trawl net where most of the net surrounding the grid was removed, reduced the unwanted catch of four of four fish species, compared to an existing grid design. Average catches of long rough dab Hippoglossoides platessoides, witch flounder Glyptocephalus cynoglossus, silver hake Merluccius bilinearis, and red hake Urophycis chuss were reduced by 36–50% with the new design of grid (new grid: 5.0–182.4 kg, old grid: 10.0–354.3 kg – see paper for species individual data). However, catches of the commercial target species northern shrimp Pandalus borealis were similar between grids (new grid: 2,446 kg, old grid: 2,528 kg). Between 3–12 May 2009, a total of 24 comparative deployments were made by an inshore shrimp trawler on a shrimp fishing ground, each of 1 h duration and between 137–165 m depth. A commercial shrimp trawl was modified with two codends; one with a new design of size-sorting grid and one with the old design (see original paper for gear specifications. After each deployment, codend catches of finfish and shrimp were sorted, weighed and lengths measured.

(Summarised by: Natasha Taylor)