NOAA Fisheries is collaborating with gear manufacturers, fishermen, and other partners to develop solutions for implementing on-demand fishing to reduce entanglements of large whales in fixed-gear fisheries.

On-demand fishing gear (also known as “ropeless” or “pop-up” gear) replaces traditional vertical lines and surface buoys with an on-demand gear retrieval system, acoustic signaling, and virtual gear marking, eliminating the need for persistent vertical line and surface buoys. In an operational program with fishing gear on the ocean bottom but not tethered to the surface with a line and buoy, fixed-gear fishing vessels, mobile fishing vessels, and other ocean users operating around a set of on-demand gear will need a way to locate and avoid it.

Additionally, with multiple manufacturers providing different technologies and acoustic communications to deploy and retrieve on-demand fishing gear, it may be necessary to develop a standardized approach to some components of implementing the use of on-demand fishing gear (e.g., standard data specification) to ensure there is interoperability across fixed-gear fishing vessels and on-demand fishing gear manufacturers operating in a fishery.

NOAA Fisheries is hosting a workshop for fishing gear manufacturers, acoustic communications experts, fishermen, fishery managers, and other stakeholders to discuss interoperability of on-demand fishing systems. The workshop will inform participants on the management drivers and regulatory requirements of traditional gear-marking systems and discuss the functional needs of fishermen and enforcement. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to discuss possible technical approaches to implementing acoustic and data interoperability standards and identify the future technical and regulatory steps to implementing on-demand fishing.

For questions about the workshop, please contact Brett Alger.

Final Workshop Report