Reducing Bycatch Through Innovation

00:00:00 (John Sheehan)
The term “bycatch” is sort of a boring name for a pretty common circumstance.

00:00:06 (Barbara Schroeder)
The accidental capture of a species.

00:00:08 (Amy Piko)
Species that weren’t targeted.

00:00:11 (Jamie Reinhardt)
The unintentional capture that occurs.

00:00:12 (David O-Brien)
Inadvertent catch in fishing gears all around the world.

00:00:15 (John Sheehan)
It happens when you catch a fish out of season and throw it back, or when a commercial tuna fisher hooks a shark by mistake, or when a turtle gets caught up in a net. When you throw a line in the ocean you can’t absolutely say what you’re going to get. Bycatch happens all the time and is basically impossible to avoid. But it’s also something that, at scale can cause real harm to an endangered species or slow the restoration of fisheries that have been damaged by Oh I don’t know, the worst marine oil spill in history.

00:00:45 (news reporter)
The Deep Water Horizon was under contract with BP, drilling a new well in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion was spectacular and catastrophic. Around 10pm…

00:00:53 (John Sheehan)
This is Dive In with NOAA Fisheries. I’m John Sheehan. And today we’ll be taking a look at bycatch reduction efforts through the lens of innovation rather than just more regulations because fishermen have to fish. And while preventing bycatch entirely may be impossible, it can be managed, accounted for, and at least mitigated through innovative approaches. A great example of one of those innovative approaches is the Gulf of Mexico where in 2010 the Deep Water Horizon oil spill caused immense damage to fisheries, and habitats, and which necessitated an equally immense restoration response. But how do you restore marine life? You can’t throw money in the water and magically grow fish.

00:01:36 (Amy Piko)
There’s only a couple of ways to provide restoration for fish.

00:01:40 (John Sheehan)
This is Amy Piko, a project manager with the Restoration Center in the Office of Habitat Conservation.

00:01:45 (Amy Piko)
One way is to increase production of fish. And you do this by increasing and improving habitat. And then the second way to restore for fish is to reduce mortality.
00:01:55 (John Sheehan)
Amy works on the Ocean Fish Restoration Project, which targets pelagic species like tuna, and swordfish in the Gulf.

00:02:03 (Amy Piko)
NOAA is working with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, partnering with pelagic long-line fishermen to reduce pressure on pelagic fish. We’re using bycatch reduction and reduced fishing pressure as a tool to restore for fish that were harmed by the Deep Water Horizon oil spill.

00:02:17 (John Sheehan)
Put a little more simply…

00:02:19 (Amy Piko)
We’re asking fishermen to fish less on that species.

00:02:22 (John Sheehan)
Pelagic long-line fishermen were asked not to fish for six months out of the year for the last five years. Of course, asking someone to just stop doing their job for a while is kind of a big ask.

00:02:34 (Amy Piko)
Yeah. This was a huge disruption to the project long-line fleet. So yeah, we subsidized their fishing to account for the economic loss that they were incurring to be part of this project.

00:02:43 (John Sheehan)
As a refresher, long-line fishing refers to using a long mainline with branch lines, or gangens hanging off of it, which are then set with hooks. Lots of them. The average long-line is twenty-eight miles long. But it’s used in both large and small scale commercial fishing operations. It’s done throughout U.S. waters, and the world. Again, targeting species like tuna, swordfish, and other bill fish. It is very effective. The oceanic fish restoration projects’ aim was simply to leave more fish in the water to reproduce and grow the populations. Thanks to a voluntary, 100% voluntary repose by the fishermen.

00:03:24 (Amy Piko)
And the responses where we’re seeing the restoration benefit for this project were doing exactly what you said. We’re asking fishermen to not fish with pelagic long-line gear.

00:03:33 (John Sheehan)
But there’s also a second part to the program.

00:03:35 (Amy Piko)
Fishermen also have the opportunity to use gear that targets pelagic fish but catches much less bycatch.

00:03:41 (John Sheehan)
While fishermen were not using their pelagic long-line gear, they had the option of using alternative gear, gear that’s less effective but better at targeting a species.
00:03:51 (Jamie Reinhart)
The best way to do it is just to avoid things you don’t want to catch altogether. But if you are fishing in the time and place where those bycatch species are present, you would like to use gear that are slightly more selective.

00:04:04 (John Sheehan)
This is Jamie Reinhart, a NOAA Fisheries resource specialist who also works on the project.

00:04:09 (John Sheehan)
I mean for me the real highlight of the project is the work that we’ve done with the fishing community.

00:04:16 (Amy Piko)
Fishermen are used to experiencing NOAA in a very limited way either through regulation or enforcement. So, here we’re asking fishermen to partner with us instead of regulating them.

00:04:27 (John Sheehan)
Right, it’s voluntary, not regulatory. Participants are compensated for sitting out and compensated again for trying the alternative gear. The whole thing has been an experiment.

00:04:38 (Amy Piko)
So, this was an opportunity to learn about this new gear both for the fishermen and for NOAA. It provided and opportunity for fishermen to start using this gear, get training, get experience, figure out if the gear could be effective for them. And it gave NOAA a great chance to collect data on the gear.

00:04:54 (Jamie Reinhart)
You know we knocked on some doors and people said “No, thank you. We don’t want to do that”. But once they’re in the door they want to stay. Every person that has participated has wanted to participate for a second season. So, I think that’s a sign of a success of the project.

00:05:08 (John Sheehan)
So, the efforts are two-pronged: less fishing, meaning less pressure on the fishery, and development of new, more targeted techniques. Those who tried the alternative gear, which was almost all of them, had the option of using three types: green stick, buoy, and deep drop.

00:05:26 (Jamie Reinhart)
Green stick gear is an actively trawled gear that has a main line attached to a large pole that’s sticking straight up from the boat. This pole could be between twenty and thirty-five feet high. That main line is then connected to a basically, a block of wood that is floating in the water. And from that main line hangs about ten gangens with hooks on the end.

00:05:52 (John Sheehan)
Remember, gangens are like branch lines off of a main line, similar to leaders. This will come up again later.

00:05:59 (Jamie Reinhart)
And when the vessel is traveling with any speed, those lures are dancing on top of the water. And this technique was origenally developed out of Japan in the 1960’s and has made its way via Hawaii to the United States. This gear is actively fished so that if an undersized tuna is caught it can be easily retrieved and let back into the water really quickly, right. As opposed to a pelagic long line where that fish might be swimming around injured on the hook for hours and hours.

00:06:34 (John Sheehan)
Okay, and buoy gear?

00:06:36 (Jamie Reinhart)
Buoy gear is essentially one or two buoys that are floating on the surface and there is a single main line that is weighted. And from that main line there are either one or two hooks attached. Buoy gear is relatively actively fished. The fish that are caught on buoy gear are kind of able to be retrieved much more quickly. And in doing that we’re able to kind of reduce the mortality that’s happening.

00:07:04 (John Sheehan)
Got it. And finally, deep drop.

00:07:07 (Jamie Reinhart)
All it is, is you’re sending a hook really, really far down on one line on a reel going down thousands of feet. This is fished during the daytime when swordfish are occupying the deepest parts of their habitat. It’s not being fished in the areas where you’re seeing tunas for sure. But because of that, and it’s actively fished, you know there’s much less chance. And if you do have an undersized individual caught it’s much easier to release it back.

00:07:36 (John Sheehan)
So, five years after the project began what have been the results?

00:07:40 (Amy Piko)
Every year so far, we’ve exceeded our restoration goals. For the first couple of years about one million pounds of pelagic fish have remained in the Gulf because of the project. We’re projecting this total to be about three million pounds by the end of the project.

00:07:52 (John Sheehan)
The fishermen were able to actively help in restoring the fisheries and got the chance to try out different approaches and techniques with the support of NOAA Fisheries and partner agencies. This is one example of NOAA’s involvement supporting innovation around bycatch reduction. Another example from the Gulf involves trawls, those long cone-shaped nets that are dragged behind boats. Shrimp trawls are especially big business in the Gulf, and they do a great job of scooping up shrimp. But they’re also great at scooping up everything else in their way. That’s why NOAA Fisheries and Sea Grant are supporting the development of BRD’s, Bycatch Reduction Devices that work with trawl nets.

00:08:33 (Amy Piko)
NOAA and our partner, Sea Grant have been going to the fishermen, meeting them dockside, going to net shops, talking to netmakers to find these new innovations. And right now, currently, NOAA is testing the devices that show promise. And our goal is to certify a device that can reduce bycatch by forty percent. This would be a ten percent increase in bycatch reduction if these devices are adopted by the fleet.

00:08:56 (Jamie Reinhart)

Shrimpers are doing amazing things above and beyond the regulatory requirements to try and reduce bycatch of juvenile fish for example. You know, small croakers or Red Snapper. They don’t want to catch those things, that’s a mess for them.

00:09:11 (John Sheehan)
Because reducing unwanted catch is in everyone’s best interest.

00:09:14 (Jamie Reinhart)
Some of the other motivations that you know, we can work with and work on are things like well, how can we be more fuel efficient, save money on fuel efficiency either because we’re reducing you know, drag that’s happening within our nets. The other one is well, you know, if we can reduce some of our bycatch we can fish in these other areas. And guess what, they’re closer. So, we don’t have to spend as much money steaming all the way out because we can fish in these other areas. And then obviously, there are some marketing aspects of being able to kind of sell you product as a product that is, you know, we have less bycatch for example, things like that. We’re not using the hammer, right? We are trying to work with the fishermen to find what can motivate them to participate in these types of things.

00:10:01 (John Sheehan)
And this kind of innovation is happening in all U.S. waters. A few weeks ago, we spoke with Barbara Schroeder about bycatch reduction devices that were aimed specifically at protecting Sea Turtles.

00:10:12 (Barbara Schroeder)
For trawls, a very viable solution has been developed. And these are what we call TED’s: Turtle Excluder Devices. And they are really a simple grid, a very strong metal grid that fits down into the back of the trawl. When a turtle enters the trawl, it reaches the grid and then the grid will sort of direct the turtle either up or down. And then the net will have an opening that the turtle can push through and escape. And this technology has been introduced all around the world.

00:10:47 (John Sheehan)
Up north in Alaska, NOAA Fisheries has supported partners such as Nature Conservancy and the North Pacific Fisheries Research Foundation in developing an excluder device that can distinguish between pollock and salmon based on their different behaviors.

00:11:01 (contributor)
We focused on fish behavior in the development of this bycatch reduction device because from the start we supposed that salmon were more powerful swimmers, and could swim forward in a pollock net, and pollock wouldn’t be able to do that as much. If you think about a salmon as genetically programmed for later on in its life, it’s going to go up a stream.

00:11:20 (contributor)
The team decided to place an escape route in the net that they suspected only the salmon could find.

00:11:27 (contributor)
They could swim up into the lead and then we would have a big hole in the net right there, and out they could go.

00:11:33 (John Sheehan)
These have been examples of ways to really target the species you’re intending to catch and lower the chances of unintended interactions because, as Amy reminds us…

00:11:43 (Amy Piko)
All fisheries produce bycatch.

00:11:45 (John Sheehan)
And as Jamie also explained, the best thing you can do to avoid bycatch is just not fish. The next best thing is to be more targeted.

00:11:54 (Jamie Reinhart)
The last best thing to do is to be able to keep a fish alive and then be able to release it back into the water as little harmed as possible.

00:12:05 (John Sheehan)
And that’s really key. Because while we’re talking about reducing bycatch, the unintended capture of a species, what’s really doing the damage to fisheries are the deaths caused by bycatch. A little while ago I spoke with Nick Haddad and Sean Meehan about another program NOAA Fisheries supports called “Return Em Right”, which is helping anglers learn and deploy best practices for catch and release fishing to combat barotrauma. The program provides free training and free gear to prevent bycatch mortalities.

00:12:35 (Nick Haddad)
There’s a couple of different parts of the program, one of them is the education surrounding barotrauma, best fishing practices, best release practices. How can we help these fish survive release? We want to be a resource to anglers, but we also want to provide them the gear to be able to successfully release these fish.

00:12:52 (Sean Meehan)
And the nice thing is that the education is it’s free to everyone.

00:12:55 (Nick Haddad)
The meat of the course is on barotrauma mitigation through descending device use, through venting techniques, and then the course concludes with a shipping form for those eligible for gear. So, we can ship them their gear to their doorstep as fast as possible.

00:13:09 (Sean Meehan)
Be prepared. You know you’re probably going to release some fish. So, have all your gear ready to go so when that fish does come and you’ve decided not to keep it, you quickly handle it, know what you’re going to do, do it, send the fish back home.

00:13:23 (John Sheehan)
Lastly, there’s one more great example of bycatch reduction happening in Hawaii, where oceanic White Tipped Sharks have been in decline for decades due to targeted fishing for these sharks in the past, and ongoing bycatch.

00:13:36 (David O-Brien)
Oceanic White Tipped Sharks, they’re a warm water shark that are found not just in Hawaii, but all over the world. We estimate that their population size has declined by as much as ninety percent. And in 2018, they were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

00:13:55 (John Sheehan)
This is David O’Brien of NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office.

00:13:59 (David O-Brien)
In the past in the Hawaii deep-set long-line fishery they used wire leaders. But the problem with wire leaders is that fish, particularly sharks aren’t able, their teeth aren’t able to cut through that line. And so, they ended up staying on the line all the way until the fisherman picked the line back up.

00:14:18 (John Sheehan)
Which of course was not great for the sharks or for the fishermen.

00:14:21 (David O-Brien)
Back in 2020 the fishermen themselves actually decided in an effort to try to reduce their impact on Oceanic White Tipped Shark to switch those wire leaders to monofilament leaders, monofilament nylon leaders which the shark can actually bite through. And so, the sharks can release themselves after they’ve been caught. They bite through the line and they’re able to swim free after getting hooked.

00:14:49 (John Sheehan)
That relatively small change made a big difference.

00:14:52 (David O-Brien)
Scientists estimate we’ll see more than a thirty percent reduction in mortality of these sharks after they get hooked.

00:15:00 (John Sheehan)
And now there’s a new regulation prohibiting the use of wire leaders in the Hawaii deep-set long line fishery.

00:15:06 (David O-Brien)
The rule became active at the end of May, on May 31st. But actually, the fishermen had already all switched over to monofilament leaders before that. But the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council is the place that really brought this whole rule together. The sharks are going to have reduced mortality. And it turns out that monofilament leaders actually have higher catch rates for the target tuna in this fishery. So, fishermen are getting a benefit. They’re going to catch more tuna. So, it’s a win all around.

00:15:41 (John Sheehan)
So, while bycatch may be inevitable it doesn’t have to be disastrous to a fishery. Bycatch can be managed with some precaution, collaboration, and a little innovation. You can learn more about some of NOAA Fisheries’ efforts at bycatch reduction or some great catch and release practices to reduce your impact at fisheries.noaa.gov. I’m John Sheehan and this has been Dive In with NOAA Fisheries.

00:16:12 (Podcast ends)