Future of Conservation Engineering and Fishing Gear Designs: NOAA's Needs and Source of Tomorrow's Gear Innovations

NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) conducts multi-disciplinary research programs to provide management information to support national and regional programs of NMFS and to respond to the needs of Regional Fishery Management Councils, Interstate and International Fishery Commissions, Fishery Development Foundations, government agencies, and the general public.  SEFSC attends to marine resources that occupy marine and estuarine habits of the continental southeastern United States, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and in general develops the scientific information required for: fishery resource conservation; fishery development and utilization; habitat conservation; and the protection of marine mammals and endangered marine species. The Pascagoula, Mississippi Laboratory of SEFSC was established in 1950, addresses a wide array of fisheries science needs, including a specialization in conservation engineering and fishing gear designs.  In recent decades, an ever-increasing demand for fisheries resources has created a critical need for more efficient and environmentally-friendly fishing gear.  Tasked with generating new gear and harvesting techniques for the resolution of vital fishery problems, the Harvesting Systems Unit seeks to develop innovative technologies and strategies to effectively manage and protect marine resources.  The vast majority of NMFS gear innovation centers around: Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs), Shrimp Trawl Bycatch Reduction, and Hook and Line Fishery Bycatch Reduction.  In addition to these primary development areas, the Harvesting Systems Unit has participated in the invention of gear designed to enhance recreational fisheries such as trawlable miniature reefs and a special hook apparatus designed to help undersized/unwanted released fish return to depth.  Increasingly, to adequately address protected species and fisheries management in the Southeast and throughout the US, scientific attention is needed internationally where many of these species migrate and spend significant stages in their life history.  Additionally, the newly reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Act pays an unprecedented level of attention to international fisheries and calls for the US to work bilaterally with other countries and multilaterally to address bycatch of protected living marine resources.  Thus, the SEFSC and the Harvesting Systems Unit provides technical assistance and support in conservation engineering, fishing gear design, and other fisheries science in Central and South America, Western Africa, and other international locations with impacts on Southeast and Caribbean fisheries.  It is in these contexts that NMFS and the SEFSC see growing needs for a marine science workforce capable of conducting collaborative fisheries research with the fishing industry and possessing strong conservation engineering expertise.