Multilevel Beam Trawl Reveals Fish and Prawn Behavior: Potential to Reduce Bycatch in the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery

摘要

In recent years, worldwide concern has increased about the impacts of fishing on the marine environment In particular, the practice of capturing and discarding large volumes of unwanted bycatch has come under scrutiny, and tropical prawn trawl fisheries are generally perceived as leading offenders in this regard. In Australia's Northern Prawn Fishery (NPF), 30,000-60,000 t of bycatch are caught each year (Harris and Ward 1997), and less than 5% of bycatch is retained for commercial purposes (Pen-deret al. 1992). The bycatch is typically made up of small fish, crustaceans, sponges, sharks, and turtles In some locations of the fishery, the bycatch-to-prawn ratio (by weight) may be as high as 20:1 (Fender et al. 1992; Brewer et al. 1998).