Fleet-wide acceptance of escape gaps and their utility for reducing bycatch in south-eastern Australian Portunus armatus traps

Thomas C. Barnes; Matt K. Broadhurst; Daniel D. Johnson

doi:10.1111/fme.12586

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Fleet-wide acceptance of escape gaps and their utility for reducing bycatch in south-eastern Australian Portunus armatus traps

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Fleet-wide acceptance of escape gaps and their utility for reducing bycatch in south-eastern Australian Portunus armatus traps

Thomas C. Barnes, Matt K. Broadhurst and Daniel D. Johnson

Fisheries management and ecology, Vol.29(6), pp.841-850

12/2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/fme.12586

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Abstract

Fisheries

Life Sciences & Biomedicine

Science & Technology

bycatch reduction devices

cull rings

discarding

portunids

pots

vents

In response to widescale, voluntary uptake of escape gaps by commercial trappers using collapsible netted cylindrical (or "round") traps targeting blue swimmer crabs, Portunus armatus, in south-eastern Australia, an observer--based study was used to assess the adoption and effectiveness of the most common escape gaps across two estuaries responsible for >70% of all harvest. Five observers collected data from 5710 deployments of round traps over 116 days. Among 60% of round traps with escape gaps, 73% were rectangular shaped, and the rest were either circular or square. Catches were dominated by P. armatus (93%), but similar to 60% were undersized (<65-mm carapace length; CL). Compared with round traps with no escape gaps, traps with a rectangular design consistently retained fewer undersized P. armatus (by up to 54%); similar to earlier, manipulative experiments. However, unlike previous observations, escape-gap performance did not significantly improve with increasing catches of P. armatus. Eventual 100% adoption of escape gaps should enable large numbers of undersized P. armatus to escape traps and avoid discarding each year in south-eastern Australia.

Details

Title: Fleet-wide acceptance of escape gaps and their utility for reducing bycatch in south-eastern Australian Portunus armatus traps
Creators: Thomas C. Barnes - NSW Department of Primary Industries
Matt K. Broadhurst - Southern Cross University, Faculty of Science and Engineering
Daniel D. Johnson - Southern Cross University
Publication Details: Fisheries management and ecology, Vol.29(6), pp.841-850
Publisher: Wiley
Number of pages: 10
Grant note: NSW Marine Estate Management Strategy Open access publishing facilitated by University of Tasmania, as part of the Wiley - University of Tasmania agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.
Identifiers: 991013059413702368
Copyright: © 2022 Commonwealth of Australia. Fisheries Management and Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

Fleet-wide acceptance of escape gaps and their utility for reducing bycatch in south-eastern Australian Portunus armatus traps

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