the incidental capture and drowning of sea turtles that were 

 protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) . By 1981, 

 NMFS had developed early designs of the TED, which reduced the 

 capture of sea turtles by 97 percent while maintaining the rate 

 of shrimp catch. The NMFS TED is a set of bars held at an angle 

 in the neck of a trawl; large objects such as turtles or sharks 

 are guided by the bars out of the net through a trap door in the 

 top of the device (Figure 9) . Other TEDs share the basic feature 

 of a slanting grid of bars (Figures 10, 11, 12) . 



Further refinements decreased the weight of the NMFS TED to 

 37 pounds, made the device collapsible so that it takes up less 

 deck space, and devised additional features that allow for the 

 reduction of juvenile finfish by-catch by 50 to 78 percent. 

 Other TEDs, including the Georgia and Texas TEDs (Figures 12 and 

 14) weigh less and cost less than the NMFS TED; however, they are 

 not as effective in reducing the by-catch of juvenile finfish. A 

 TED made of netting, which is extremely lightweight, has been 

 developed by shrimp fishermen in South Carolina 'and has excluded 

 larger sea turtles as effectively as the other devices. 



On October 1, 1987, regulations phasing in the required use 

 of TEDs in the U.S. shrimp fishery went into effect. These 

 regulations require that fishermen working with boats longer than 

 25 feet in offshore waters from North Carolina to Texas use TEDs 

 during those months when the conflict between shrimp trawling and 

 sea turtles is highest. In the Canaveral and southwest Florida 

 areas, offshore fishermen must use TEDs year-round, while in the 

 rest of the Atlantic they need only use them from May through 

 August and in the Gulf of Mexico they need use them from March 

 through November (Maps 1 and 3) . 



Fishermen working inshore waters — generally those waters 

 behind barrier islands or in bays and sounds — must use TEDs or 

 trawl no longer than 90 minutes (Maps 2 and 4) . NMFS testing of 

 trawls demonstrated that there is a direct relationship between 

 the percent mortality of sea turtles caught in shrimp trawls and 

 the towing time. Mortality is negligible at towing times up to 

 about 75 minutes. Beyond 90 minutes there is a linear 

 relationship between mortality and towing time; at 330 minutes, 

 mortality is about 53 percent. This requirement, which is 

 difficult to enforce in inshore areas, would be impossible to 

 enforce in offshore areas. 



If fully implemented, these regulations will nearly 

 eliminate incidental mortality of sea turtles in the southeastern 

 U.S. shrimp fishery. Shrimp fishermen in some areas are hotly 

 contesting the regulations. 



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