NOAA Fisheries supports the development of technological solutions and changes in fishing practices designed to minimize bycatch. Our mission is to find creative approaches and strategies for reducing bycatch, seabird interactions, and post-release mortality in federally managed fisheries.
Funding for Innovative Bycatch Solutions
NOAA Fisheries announces the availability of approximately $2.5 million for projects that increase collaborative research and partnerships for innovation in bycatch reduction. Proposals should focus on the high-priority areas below.
High-priority areas for Fiscal Year 2021 projects include:
- Developing innovative and effective technologies; gear modifications; avoidance programs and techniques; and/or improved fishing practices in commercial and recreational fisheries and aquaculture to reduce bycatch impacts to:
- Catch share fisheries
- Protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act or the Endangered Species Act
- Highly migratory species
- Fish stocks that are overfished, where overfishing is occurring, or that are limiting the ability to harvest
- Seabirds
- Improving understanding and reduction of post-release and other indirect mortality, including barotrauma, predation, and unaccounted mortality in commercial and recreational fisheries and aquaculture. This includes target and non-target species of fish or protected species. Proposals addressing this priority may be projects that specifically test descending devices or identify high-priority release and discard mortality needs and provide baseline information for important discarded species (in particular, but not limited to red snapper, Atlantic cod, striped marlin, etc.).
- Developing techniques to reduce interactions between fishing gears and corals, sponges, and other structure-forming invertebrates. Proposals that specifically reduce impacts to essential fish habitats, deep-sea coral sites, and endangered tropical corals.
- Conducting comprehensive international bycatch analyses or research that will inform conservation engineering in U.S. commercial, recreational, and aquaculture fisheries.
