Reducing Sea Turtle Mortality in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern New England Summer Flounder Trawl Fishery

The National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center has led a collaboration of academics, gear manufacturers and fishermen to develop and evaluate two different approaches to reduce bycatch of sea turtles in bottom trawls in the summer flounder fishery. Turtle excluder devices (TEDs) reduce sea turtle bycatch by releasing sea turtles after being captured, but they also can substantially reduce the target catch. Evaluation of topless trawls with varying headrope lengths showed that, when the headrope is “set back” or sufficiently lags the footrope, most sea turtles are not captured. Testing to date indicates that topless trawls with limited setback do not reduce target species catch, but, when the setback is increased to where it is most effective for sea turtles, the target catch efficiency appears to diminish. Additional research in a flume tank to determine the best rigging of the extended setback topless trawl and a field evaluation of that design are scheduled for 2013.