Teaching Conservation Engineering and Fishing Gear Design Through Distance Learning, e-Networking, and a Research Practicum

Conservation engineering involves a collaboration between scientists and fishermen in which each partner lends complementary expertise to solving the problem. This is true whether designing scientifically appropriate, experimental protocols and analyses or modifying fishing gears to reduce bycatch and/or fish selectively.

Fishing gears are dynamic devices with a complex set of interactions between fish and the gear that are governed, in varying degrees by fish swimming capabilities, performance of sensory systems, environmental conditions, and other factors including experience, level of awareness, learning and prior history. In order to develop effective bycatch reduction and selective fishing strategies, the collaborating scientist must have an understanding of this wide range of topics and have a working knowledge of the mechanics and dynamics of fishing gears and their operation. So, while conservation engineering is primarily a field-based, practical discipline, distance-learning approaches can provide the necessary theoretical baseline and allow real examples from the field to be examined. This, coupled with a required practical field study (practicum), allows all the necessary dimensions of this demanding discipline to be addressed.

One significant advantage of such an e-learning approach, is the ability to expose students to the experiences of a wider range of experts and the potential for a wider geographical reach than would be possible in a conventional classroom setting.