About the Squid Trawl Network

 

The goal of the bycatch avoidance network is to reduce bycatch of: butterfish, river herring (blueback, alewives), shad (American, hickory), haddock and red hake in the Georges Bank (GB) small mesh multispecies (whiting) fishery; windowpane and yellowtail flounder in the mid-Atlantic (MA), Southern New England (SNE), and GB small mesh (squid, whiting, scup) and groundfish (sector and common pool) fisheries. The bycatch avoidance network project continues to serve these fisheries and report interactions of these 9 species. This information allows the fleet to adjust fishing practices to avoid “hot spots” thereby preventing quota overages, avoiding implementation of management measures restricting fisheries, and pro-actively preserves the resource while allowing for full utilization of the resource where available.