Catch and release patterns for target and bycatch species in the Northeast Atlantic deep-water shrimp fishery: Effect of using a sieve panel and a Nordmøre grid

The Nordmøre grid and the sieve panel are two of the main devices used to reduce fish bycatch in trawl fisheries targeting shrimp species. However, even when using such devices, some small-sized fish enter the codend of the trawl together with the targeted shrimp. Therefore, bycatch reduction remains a problem in some shrimp fisheries. One such fishery is the Northeast Atlantic deep-water shrimp (Pandalus borealis) fishery where it is mandatory to use a Nordmøre grid. In this study, the bycatch reduction efficiencies and patterns for several fish species using the standard Nordmøre grid and an experimental sieve panel were investigated and compared. The effect of combining these devices was also explored. The bycatch reduction patterns differed significantly between the two devices and a more efficient bycatch reduction was obtained by combining them. However, while the loss of commercial-sized shrimp was only between 0 and 2% for the Nordmøre grid, it was between 37 and 56% for the tested sieve panel, making this completely unacceptable for commercial fishing. Therefore, before a sieve panel can be considered as an option for the fishery, other sieve panel designs that have a significantly lower loss of shrimp catches need to be identified.Catch and release patterns for target and bycatch species in the Northeast Atlantic deep-water shrimp fishery: Effect of using a sieve panel and a Nordmøre gridThis study was part of the project “Optimizing shrimp trawl fisheries”, which is funded by The Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (project no. 901303). We are grateful to UiT The Arctic University of Norway for its support with the research vessel, the Directorate of Fisheries in Norway for granting the fishing permit (number 16/12094) and the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF project number 901303) for funding the experiments. The publication charges for this article have been funded by a grant from the publication fund of UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. SINTEF Ocean provided support in the form of salaries for authors BH and MS, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the “author contributions” section.publishedVersio