Project number: 2023-155
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $242,000.00
Principal Investigator: John Wakeford
Organisation: Sea Harvest Fishing Company Pty Ltd
Project start/end date: 31 May 2024 - 31 Oct 2025
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Fisheries Management
Environmental Impact
Commercial Species
Bycatch
SPECIES
Prawns

Need

This project is needed to reduce the impact of prawn trawling on sea-snake populations both in Australia and overseas; the technology developed has been proven to reduce the landings of sea-snakes by 80%, however, it has not been properly assessed in terms of why it is so effective and whether sea-snakes escaping are healthy and likely to survive. This project attends to this need. The proposed project activity also includes a refinement phase whereby observations made during the Assessment sea-trials phase will be utilised to improve its performance prior to starting the Extension phase across several Australian prawn fisheries.

Successful reduction in sea-snake landings, as well as other small/moderate sized finfish bycatch, will help meet the sustainable fisheries priority.

Objectives

1. Comprehensively assess the bycatch reduction performance of the Sea-snake TED/BRD including coverage of when, where, and how sea-snake escape, and what other species are likely to benefit the most from its use.
2. Utilise both the existing Sea Harvest data (e.g., from 2023) and the assessment data from Objective 1 activity, to refine the Sea-snake TED/BRD, noting that these refinements may extend beyond improving exclusion rates and retention rates (prawn), to making the trawl gear fish better and ‘cleaner’.
3. Develop clear uptake guidelines to enable the Sea-snake TED/BRD to be successfully introduced into other prawn fisheries where variance in net design, TED/BRD design, and operations, may, if ignored, compromise its performance.

Related research

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