372 
National Marine 
Fisheries Service 
NOAA 
Abstract —Penaeid shrimp fisheries, 
particularly those operating with bot¬ 
tom otter trawls, can generate high lev¬ 
els of bycatch. In 2014, a workgroup was 
formed to devise and test gear modifi¬ 
cations in Pamlico Sound and the near¬ 
shore waters of North Carolina with 
the goal of improving bycatch reduction 
rates. Trials were conducted in 2015 
and 2016 on large (>12 m), double- 
rigged industry vessels, and trials were 
conducted in 2017 on 1 double-rigged 
vessel and 3 smaller, twin-rigged ves¬ 
sels. A paired Gtest and a randomiza¬ 
tion test were used to compare tows. 
The results of both tests indicate that 
4 of the 14 gears tested achieved an 
average rate of finfish bycatch reduc¬ 
tion that was 40% greater than that of 
the control gear. Shrimp loss in most 
gears tested was minimal. Three of the 
4 gears that met the reduction goal for 
finfish bycatch employed a combina¬ 
tion of increased codend mesh size and 
larger finfish escape openings relative 
to the control configuration. Relying on 
industry input and expert opinions as 
well as on past research to guide the 
selection of test gears and their design, 
the workshop members developed gear 
combinations that appear to meet the 
management objective for bycatch 
reduction. The results of this work pro¬ 
vide direction for future testing in sim¬ 
ilar fisheries. 
Manuscript submitted 2 April 2019. 
Manuscript accepted 4 December 2019. 
Fish. Bull. 117:372-385 (2019). 
Online publication date: 19 December 2019. 
doi: 10.7755/FB. 117.4.9 
The views and opinions expressed or 
implied in this article are those of the 
author (or authors) and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Fishery Bulletin 
nr established In 1881 -<?. 
Spencer F. Baird 
First U S. Commissioner 
of Fisheries and founder 
of Fishery Bulletin 
Simple gear modifications for achieving 
greater than 40% bycatch reduction 
in an estuarine shrimp trawl fishery 
H. Kevin Brown (contact author ) 1 
Blake Price 2 
Laura Lee 3 
M. Scott Baker Jr . 4 
Sara E. Mirabilio 5 
Email address for contact author: kevin.h.brown@ncdenr.gov 
' Division of Marine Fisheries 
North Carolina Department of 
Environmental Quality 
3441 Arendell Street 
Morehead City, North 
Carolina 28557 
2 Riverside Technology Inc. 
Beaufort Laboratory 
Southeast Fisheries Science Center 
National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA 
101 Pivers Island Road 
Beaufort, North Carolina 28516 
3 Division of Marine Fisheries 
North Carolina Department of Environmental 
Quality 
3441 Arendell Street 
Morehead City, North Carolina 28557 
4 North Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program 
University of North Carolina Wilmington Center 
for Marine Science 
601 S. College Road 
Wilmington, North Carolina, 28409 
5 North Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program 
P.O. Box 699 
Manteo, North Carolina 27954 
Bycatch in commercial fisheries remains 
an important and controversial topic 
in fisheries management and marine 
conservation both in the United States 
and around the world (Andrew and 
Pepperell, 1992; Crowder and Murawski, 
1998; Hall et al., 2000; Kelleher, 2005; 
Davies et al., 2009; Portley et al. 1 ). 
Warm-water penaeid shrimp fisheries, 
particularly those operating with bottom 
otter trawls, can generate high levels of 
bycatch (Andrew and Pepperell, 1992). 
Importantly, bycatch in the shrimp 
trawl fishery can have ecological, eco¬ 
nomic, and management repercussions 
(Had et al., 2000). 
1 Portley, N., M. Westmeyer, and J. M. Gar¬ 
cia Caudilo. 2015. SFP report on the wild 
shrimp sector: bycatch in global shrimp 
fisheries, 15 p. Sustainable Fish. Partner. 
Found., Honolulu, HI. [Available from 
website.] 
Efforts to reduce bycatch in shrimp 
trawl fisheries span decades (Watson 
and McVea, 1977; Vieira et al., 2017), and 
the conventional approach to addressing 
bycatch has been through gear modi¬ 
fication to achieve bycatch reduction 
rather than elimination of trawl gear 
(Watson et al., 1999; Broadhurst, 2000; 
Eayrs, 2012). Gear modifications that 
are easy to deploy, are inexpensive, 
reduce bycatch, and maintain shrimp 
catch are more acceptable to the fishing 
industry than area or seasonal closures 
(Murray et al., 1992). Some of the earli¬ 
est work focused on the development of 
the trawl efficiency device (TED), also 
known as the turtle excluder device, in 
efforts to exclude sea turtles from the 
gear (Watson and McVea, 1977). Sub¬ 
sequently, bycatch reduction devices 
(BRD) have been developed and tested 
in an attempt to exclude bycatch by size 
or behavior (Broadhurst, 2000). The use 
