2025 Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program Projects Recommended For Funding

Northeast/Mid-Atlantic

Sea Mammal Education Learning Technology Society (SMELTS)

Reducing Bycatch in Gillnets Using SMELTS Gillnet Rafts with Targeted Acoustic Startle Technology (TAST) and Catch Cam Cameras

$254,100

The purpose of this project will be to support and identify bycatch reduction devices that can significantly lower levels of death and serious injury of marine mammals occurring by conducting trials of the the Sea Mammal Education Learning Technology Society (SMELTS™) On-Demand Lift-Bag Fishing Gear Technology. The researchers will partner with fishers and technology partners to build and test four novel ropeless gillnet fishing gear that are safe, reliable, and simple to use with an intuitive shipboard control system. These ropeless gillnet rafts will also include new sound and camera monitoring technologies to detect marine mammals. The goal of these monitoring devices will be to advance the understanding of bycatch in gillnets, while also eliminating the risk of fishing line and buoy entanglement near the gillnets.

Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Inc. 

Reducing bycatch and gear conflicts in U.S. fisheries

$258,527

Since 2018, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, has worked to trial “on-demand” fishing with commercial lobster fishermen with the goal of providing a viable alternative for fishermen to access seasonal restricted areas without significantly increasing entanglement risk to right whales. While previous trials have successfully demonstrated the ability of an acoustic release to bring traps to the surface, two key components in commercial viability will rely on improved performance of the user applications (apps) used by various manufacturers and the integration of those apps into chart plotters. This project will support the need for software upgrades that will improve app performance while also integrating the apps into chart plotter systems. Finally, the progress in software upgrades, which will improve usability as well as improve integration into chart plotters, will be presented at the annual meeting of the Ropeless Consortium.

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County

Encouraging the voluntary adoption of the Ultra-Low Opening Trawl (ULOT) to fully utilize groundfish quota in the Northeast groundfish fishery

$226,780

This project will perform outreach, research, and development related to Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) within the offshore longfin squid fishery in the Northeast United States. TEDs are a simple grid made of metal bars that fit into a fishing net. Small squid can pass between the bars to the back of the net, turtles and other larger animals bump against the metal grid and escape through a flap in the net. This proposed project will complement and expand upon another recent BREP-funded research conducted by Cornell to test two TEDs in the inshore Atlantic longfin squid bottom trawl fishery off Long Island, New York. The offshore longfin squid fishery differs greatly from the inshore fishery, as the vessels and gear are typically much larger, with an increased volume of squid caught. This project is expected to generate valuable data on the performance of the two different TEDs in the offshore longfin squid fishery, directly informing management decisions and best practices for sea turtle bycatch reduction.

Southeast/Gulf of Mexico 

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Assessment of deep-set buoy gear catch, bycatch and post-release mortality while targeting swordfish along the U.S. East coast

$249,972

The project will leverage existing partnerships between the research team and deep-set buoy fishers to characterize the efficacy of their buoy fishers' efforts to target swordfish and then will quantify the bycatch and compare the results to other gear types. Fishing with multiple commercial partners will allow for coordinated testing of this deep-set buoy gear, designed by the fishers, and will include a quantitative comparison of bycatch rates of the species being caught by accident. Using this catch data and remote measurements of the ocean environment, researchers will characterize how catch rates, by species, vary over space and time, and explore potential environmental drivers that may change that variability throughout the water column. There is currently no research on the drivers of catch variability with deep-set buoy gear, and studies on shallow buoy gear are inconclusive. Such knowledge will be critical for understanding species-gear interactions and catch-bycatch trends, such as seasonality and spatio-temporal dynamics. Participating fishers will be equipped with electronic tags that will help assess post-release mortality of primary bycatch species.

Mote Marine Laboratory 

Evaluating Shark Deterrent Technologies in the Gulf of America Commercial Reef Fish Bottom Longline Fishery through Electronic Monitoring

$208,529

To address shark depredation, or interference and eating of economically important reef fish, this project will engage Gulf of America commercial fishermen in testing the effectiveness of Florida Atlantic University's (FAU) Zinc/Graphite shark deterrent within the commercial reef fish bottom longline fishery. Zinc and graphite in seawater produces a galvanic electric field sufficiently strong to repel coastal sharks from baited hooks. By testing this technology in real-world conditions, the project will aim to mitigate shark interactions, reducing incidental captures and alleviating financial and operational burdens on commercial fishers. This project will build on FAU’s previous work with this promising deterrent and modifications being made through their NOAA BREP-supported work that will be tested in the South Atlantic pelagic longline fishery.

West Coast 

Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission 

Rockfish Barotrauma During Longline Operations: Developing Gear for Efficient Recompression and Assessing the Effects of On-Hook Time on Fish Survival

$243,797

Rockfish off of the U.S. West Coast represent a diverse group of species that are both ecologically and economically important. Rockfish have long lifespans, grow slowly, and are vulnerable to mortality from extreme changes in pressure when brought from depth. This project will test the effectiveness of two methods for re-compressing rockfish at depth. Then, they will quantify survival rates of the various species, while considering how long each fish was hooked. Finally, the project will develop survival tables to inform fishers and fishery managers on best practices for catching, handling, and returning rockfish to the ocean.

Sub Sea Sonics 

Towards Economically Viable On-Demand Fishing Systems for Deep-Water Fisheries.

$228,581

The west coast Dungeness crab fishery can cause the unintentional entanglement of large whales, as well as the critically endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtles, in vertical buoy lines attached to crab traps. This project will conduct further testing and evaluation of a ropeless crab trap retrieval system. The goal of this project will be to expand the use of reliable, cost-effective, on-demand fishing gear to deep-water fisheries such as the Dungeness crab fishery. These crab traps will use sound waves to remotely trigger the release of a buoy or inflatable lift bag attached to a crab trap, which then floats the trap to the surface for retrieval. This will eliminate the need for a vertical buoy line, reducing entanglement risks to marine life, while also preserving the fishery.

The project will accomplish the following research objectives: Refine a low-cost sound-based trigger to release ropeless fishing gear from deep water; Evaluate a number of options to find the best solutions to handling fishing lines and this gear in deep water; Evaluate options to improve visibility of fishing gear at the surface, and; Test this gear's capabilities and performance of these systems with commercial fishers in the field.

Pacific Whiting Conservation Cooperative

Emerging commercial fishery implementation of pound nets for selective harvesting of hatchery salmon and bycatch mortality reduction in the Columbia River

$72,000

Funding for this project will support a workshop that will bring together fishermen, scientists, engineers, and others for concentrated learning and idea exchange towards the shared goal of reducing incidental catch of Endangered Species Act-listed Pacific salmon. The goals of this  workshop are to: contextualize current Pacific salmon catch in the Pacific hake fishery; discuss existing mitigation measures for all Pacific hake sectors; generate new ideas for mitigation measures in two categories (physical and behavioral); prioritize mitigation measures for each category; identify needs for testing and implementation of priority measures; and identify and share resources participants could use to develop collaborative mechanisms and seek funding for testing and implementing priority mitigation measures. Reducing bycatch of salmon is necessary for the effective management of this economically important fish species. 

Alaska

Alaska Department of Fish & Game

Reduce Stellar sea lion depredation on Alaska salmon fisheries using Targeted Acoustic Startle Technology (TAST)

$348,723

This project will conduct research and development to determine the best size and weight reduction for a Targeted Acoustic Startle Technology (TAST) system and create a modular design to accommodate low- and mid-frequency (MF) transducers. Many of Alaska’s fin fisheries can be impacted by marine mammal bycatch and depredation. Previous BREP work  showed that TAST can be used to elicit temporary and localized avoidance responses in Steller sea lions (Jemison et al. 2024). Using the improved system, the project will estimate harmful interactions between Stellar sea lions (SSL) and Southeast Alaska troll fishers and test the effectiveness of a multi-taxa MF pod on SSL in a controlled environment following protocols of Jemison et al. 2024. Depredation can cause injury and mortality to marine mammals when they swallow hooks or get entangled in nets, and serious economic losses to fishermen (e.g., loss of catch and gear due to depredation). Previous research has shown Targeted Acoustic Startle Technology (TAST), which is a method used to deter marine mammals from areas where they might interfere with human activities like aquaculture or fisheries, to be a promising technology to deter marine mammals from fishing operations and has been tested in a wide variety of fisheries worldwide. This project will test the effectiveness of TAST in two Alaska fisheries.

Pacific Islands

Hookpods, Ltd. 

Commercial trials to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Hookpod, seabird bycatch mitigation technology in the Hawaiian shallow-set longline fleet

$328,853

This project aims to test and demonstrate the operational practicality and effectiveness of the Hookpod Mini device in the Hawaii shallow-set swordfish fishery to increase operational hours into sunset and improve seabird bycatch mitigation. Hookpods are a bycatch reduction device that cover the point and barb of a baited hook and stop birds getting caught as they dive for bait during line setting operations on longline fishing vessels. This project will compare seabird interactions with longline gear that include Hookpod Minis to standard fishing gear. To do this, the research team will conduct testing involving three vessels to compare the effectiveness of fishing with a Hookpod Mini at two different times of day (1.5 hours prior to sunset, and night setting) to existing seabird avoidance requirements (e.g. branch line weights and blue-dyed bait).