Resource Library

By Rebecca Love

This article is reprinted with permission of Commercial Fisheries News, the Northeast's fishing newspaper for over 28 years, ©2002 Compass Publications Inc. Commercial Fisheries News is published monthly. To subscribe or request a sample issue: call (800) 989-5253; fax (207) 367-2490; e-mail (cfoster@fish-news.com); or click on the hot link.

ST JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND -

With more stringent restrictions on groundfish imminent, many fisherman are starting to think about how they can get ahead of the game. In an effort to do just that, eight draggermen from two New Hampshire fishing co-ops recently traveled to the Center for Sustainable Aquatic Resources (CSAR) at the Fisheries and Marine Institute of the Memorial University of Newfoundland for a five-day workshop.

Organized by New Hampshire Sea Grant's Pingguo He, a researcher from the University of New Hampshire who specializes in fish behavior and conservation engineering, the workshop was designed to help fishermen see how they can use selectivity to promote conservation during commercial trawling. Funding for the workshop was provided by the Northeast Consortium.

Flume tank

The CSAR is equipped with the world's largest fisheries flume tank, which is primarily used for testing and demonstrating scaled-down models of towed fishing gears such as trawls, with an eye toward reducing bycatch and fuel consumption. The flume tank is 73' long, holds 1.7 million liters of water, and can simulate currents similar to those observed during actual towing operations.

The first day of the workshop began with a dozen fast-paced demonstrations of trawling gear configurations. By changing properties such as bridle length, bottom trawl door type and angles, groundcable length, footrope, sweep, tickler chains, and tow speed, the draggermen were able to see and compare the effects on the performance of the gear in just minutes -- something they would never be able to do in real life.

Impressed by the tank's capabilities, the fishermen were soon overflowing with ideas, postulations, and questions about all the possible gear configurations the CSAR staff could demonstrate in the flume tank. George Littlefield of the Lady Regena combined knowledge from his own experience with information he learned about fish behavior to come up with a way to reduce impact on the seabed during trawling.

"Instead of putting my doors on the bottom, I can make noise with chains hanging from the footropes" to help herd the fish, he said.

Some fishermen's thinking was completely reversed by watching the demonstrations. "I always thought that headrope height would increase as I sped up," said Jim Bowles of the Penny B. "But it's just the opposite." The workshop also changed many people's belief about tickler chains once a demonstration showed how they can often be ineffective in increasing catch as well as harmful to fish.

Newfoundland's woes

CSAR Director Glenn Blackwood gave an overview of the recent history of Newfoundland¹s fishery. For 500 years, the cod fishery sustained Newfoundland¹s economy. But the early 1990s crash of the groundfish fishery changed all of that. In 1992, the Canadian government imposed a moratorium on cod and other groundfish species on the northeast of Newfoundland. Although this resulted in a shift of fishing effort to crab and shrimp fisheries, groundfish stocks have not recovered and many of the fishing villages, which thrived on the income produced by cod, have dwindled or disappeared completely.

Groundfish are free to swim over any international line without a passport and yet the US and Canadian governments do not seem to coordinate management efforts for adjoining stocks. This prompted David Goethel of the Ellen Diane to pose the question: "How do we get our governments to work together better?" Blackwood pointed out that in addition to encouraging cooperation between the governments, fishermen need to demonstrate to the public that they are interested in conservation engineering and saving fish. "Fishermen need to change their reputation. They need to be seen as conservationists."

Fish-gear interaction

In another presentation, Pingguo He discussed how fish behave in relation to fishing gears, pointing out three basic types of selectivity to consider when trying to avoid bycatch: size, species, and sex. To reduce mortality of fish that may have encountered gear but have not been landed, He proposed a systematic approach to reducing bycatch:

First, try to avoid areas of unwanted species;

Second, deter the unwanted animals from entering the net;

Third, have an escape route; and

Finally, release the catch as quickly as possible.

He warned that selectivity may not always lead to conservation. For example, selectivity aimed at capturing large spawning fish may wind up reducing total egg production and genetic diversity in the long term. Other workshop speakers workshop included: Jon Lien, a mammalogist and honorary professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland; Noel Milley a crab fisherman and CSAR instructor; Carl Harris, an engineer at the marine institute; and Scott Grant, a CSAR biologist. Roy Gibbons, an experienced trawl captain and marine institute instructor, ran the gear demonstrations during the workshop.

Wave effects

The workshop also included a tour of the Institute for Marine Dynamics (IMD) and the Ocean Sciences Center. The IMD is a leader in ocean engineering and can simulate marine research environments to examine wave and ice effects on container ships, fishing boats, oil tankers, and other vessels types. At the Ocean Science Center, fishermen explored the Aquaculture Research and Development Facility where young codfish, halibut, and flounder are raised for small-scale commercial trials.

After examining different gear configurations and learning about fish behavior, all of the participating fishermen expressed interest in getting involved in future collaborative research projects. As one put it, "If (future) decisions are going to be made about what I can catch, I want to have some say in the science." Added Peter Kendall of the Elizabeth Ann, "The workshop achieved its goal of bringing fishermen, scientists, and government together to work on ideas that will protect the fish as well as the fishermen."