Partners at NOAA, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and LGL Ecological Research Associates are collaborating with the Gulf shrimp industry to aid in sea turtle restoration. This work is being conducted through the “Shrimp Trawl Effort Project in the Gulf of America” that was funded by the Deepwater Horizon Regionwide Trustee Implementation Group’s Final Restoration Plan for Birds, Marine Mammals, Oysters, and Sea Turtles.
Partners at LGL are working closely with volunteer shrimping vessels across the five Gulf states to collect inshore shrimping data. The goal is to better understand the existing shrimp trawling activities of state-permitted fleets and how vessel activity may interact with sea turtle populations.
The project uses cellular-based GPS systems to collect data about where and when shrimping vessels fish inside state waters in order to identify areas where shrimp trawling might overlap with sea turtle distribution. This information will help evaluate and guide future voluntary restoration efforts, which will be developed through continued collaboration with shrimp fishery participants.
This project is modeled after the Gulf Shrimp Fishery Monitoring Program for federally permitted shrimp vessels and will build upon the U.S. shrimp industry’s global leadership in reducing bycatch of sea turtles and fish. For more than a decade, this data has also been valuable to the industry. Data collected has:
- Minimized Federal management actions taken on the shrimp fishery related to interactions with other species
- Improved marine spatial planning (guided decisions on where to place artificial reefs and siting for offshore energy and aquaculture structures)
- Modernizing how data is collected for state shrimp vessels will provide similar utility to the industry. The devices and data collected can also be used by the captains and owners of vessels for their own purposes, such as to coordinate on-water operations or provide their location to family members
Looking Ahead
This multi-year project includes outreach to potential participants, purchasing equipment, and working with the industry to install and maintain devices. Volunteers for this program can choose from several cellular-based GPS devices that will be provided and installed at no cost, with two years of paid transmission fees. At the completion of the program, devices can be returned or may be kept and maintained by the owner if desired. The project aims to involve 200 vessels.
If you are interested in participating in this project, please contact Nathan Putman with LGL at nputman@lgl.com or 205-218-5276.
This collaborative effort advances cooperative conservation efforts by working with shrimp vessel operators to make significant progress in protecting sea turtles while supporting sustainable and economically favorable fishing practices.
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