Survival of bycatch species escaping trawls

New fishing trawl gears are designed to facilitate the escape of animal species that would otherwise be landed as bycatch and discarded. Knowledge of animal behavior such as startle, rheotaxis, phototaxis, avoidance, and sheltering is used to facilitate escape of potential bycatch species from trawls.

He, editor

Survival of animals that escape from trawls is an important aspect of conservation. Any mortality of escapees must be accounted for as bycatch mortality in fisheries management.

Rahikainen et al. 2004

Measurement of survival and mortality rates for escapees is a difficult research problem. One approach is to design trawls and nets that can sample escapees for later observation of behavior, recovery from capture, or mortality.

 Suuronen 2005

Reflex actions and volitional behavior can be observed in cages after animals have escaped from trawls and through their recovery period. RAMP can validated during these experiments and used to predict mortality rates for animals observed to escape from fishing gears.

Project Survival