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Redesign Of Channeled Whelk Traps For Improved Selective Harvesting
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2022
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[PDF-1.09 MB]
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Description:A fishery in the waters around Massachusetts for the Channeled Whelk has grown to prominence in the past several decades. Channeled Whelk are a marine gastropod related to the Conch, and fishermen have been harvesting them with a basic pot trap design akin to the ones in the Lobster fishery for many years. Fishermen have needed alternatives proposed to these traps to strengthen their decreasing harvests and to reduce their increasing yield of bycatch. With increasing size regulations, there has been an increase in the amount of sorting that is necessary for a legal harvest. The research done is imperative to saving these fishermen time while out at sea and reducing the amount of handling that a sublegal sized whelk experiences, as well as reducing the bycatch from ghost fishing. One way to allow sublegal whelk out of a trap is commonly seen in lobster traps, escape vents. The escape events allow the smaller individuals to exit the trap while retaining marketable individuals. The whelk trap created will be accepted into the commercial fishing community and will retain legal sized individuals within the trap. Making the escape vent too large allows legal whelk to freely exit the trap but making the door too small means bycatch numbers are barely altered. Two main experiments were designed, one testing effectiveness of vent shape in an actual trap. Control tests, insert tests, and escape tests were completed to test different shape trap doors and how the whelk navigate both in and out of the trap. The circle shape and a modified circle shape that resembles a gumdrop were the two main shapes tested both at 75mm diameter. After multiple trials and review, a finalized gumdrop shape trap door design has been found to show the most significant improvements for allowing the majority of sublegal whelk to escape. The final design, among other valuable information learned during the past year about these animals, will continue to push forward new improvements for whelk fishermen.
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Sea Grant Document Number:UNHMP-TR-SG-22-18
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Rights Information:CC0 Public Domain
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Compliance:Submitted
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