Saving Seafood

Reducing Bycatch in Shrimp Trawls Through Education

June 19, 2026 — NOAA’s Gear Monitoring Team has made significant progress improving and maintaining turtle excluder device compliance in the Gulf of America shrimp fishery. TEDs allow shrimp to pass through the bars to the end of the net. This allows fishers to maintain catch levels, while larger marine animals like sea turtles get “excluded” from the net.

Our gear experts cover the entire Gulf—from Key West, Florida to Brownsville, Texas. Through their efforts conducting outreach, education, and enforcement training within fishing communities, TED compliance rates in the Gulf shrimp fishery now exceed 90 percent

Refresher for Law Enforcement

The team provides training to state and federal enforcement agencies to improve understanding of TED requirements and promote consistency in enforcement. This year we provided refresher training to:

  • Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers and the U.S. Coast Guard near Marco Island, Florida
  • Texas Parks and Wildlife and U.S. Coast Guard in South Texas
  • Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries officers

NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement coordinated and participated in these training sessions with our team and state law enforcement partners. This allowed officers to gain proficiency in TED requirements and gain on the water experience measuring the devices.

“We conducted a classroom portion of the training to review regulations and provide hands-on practice,” said Jason Letort, gear specialist and Gear Monitoring Team lead. “This was followed by a day of offshore patrols several miles west of Marco Island and Naples, Florida, where we boarded seven vessels and checked TED compliance on all of them. This allowed the officers to gain real experience checking TEDs on the back deck of a shrimp boat, which they can’t get in a classroom.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Alaska researchers using tagging data to reduce fishing bycatch

June 11, 2026 — A stream of data more than a decade in the making is helping a team of Alaska researchers’ efforts to boost the health of the local salmon population and the bottom line of fishing trawlers.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks research team has translated a trove of data from a chinook salmon tagging program into a predictive model that could help reduce bycatch by fishing trawlers.

Chinook salmon range from the ocean’s surface to depths where trawl nets target groundfish species. The researchers’ model uses more than 700,000 data points between Southeast Alaska and the Bering Sea to predict how chinook will be distributed across the water column. With that information, trawlers can potentially adjust their operations to reduce inadvertent salmon catches.

Read the full article at Peninsula Clarion 

Alaska Legislature considers bills to ban bottom trawling in state waters

April 13, 2026 — The Alaska Legislature is considering proposals to ban bottom trawling in state waters as a way to protect salmon and the seafloor.

In recent years, popular social media campaigns have opposed trawling and its links to bycatch, the taking of salmon and halibut as fishermen target other species. Meanwhile, trawlers have come out vocally in support of the industry, focusing on its economic benefits for Alaska while seafood processors and other stakeholders struggle.

Access to salmon is a highly charged and emotional issue in Alaska. It is tied to jobs, food security and Alaska Native culture.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

Unalaska’s pollock industry anticipates upcoming chum bycatch decision

February 2, 2026 — The Unalaska City Council took up the issue of salmon bycatch at its two January meetings, ultimately agreeing to support industry-run bycatch avoidance programs.

Salmon bycatch has been a flashpoint for years. And the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees federal fisheries in Alaska, including in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, will now weigh in on whether to impose stricter limits on chum salmon bycatch at its upcoming February meeting.

That’s got Unalaska leaders worried the decision could threaten the pollock industry that underpins the island’s economy.

“This is one of the most important items in the last few years,” said Frank Kelty, the city’s fisheries consultant at the city council’s Jan. 13 meeting.

Kelty warned council members that proposed limits could have major consequences for the community, whose economy revolves around the fishery.

Kelty told council members that the pollock B season — which accounts for about 60% of the annual pollock harvest — is particularly at risk.

He pointed to one proposal that would cap incidental catch of chum salmon at 100,000. Kelty said under that scenario, the pollock B season would have shut down early in eleven of the past twelve years.

That, he said, would ripple through Unalaska’s economy — affecting processors, harvesters, city revenues and support businesses, like refrigeration companies.

Read the full article at KMXT

ALASKA: Newly proposed federal legislation aims to curb Alaska bycatch

January 15, 2026 — Alaska’s congressional delegation introduced legislation Wednesday that aims to reduce bycatch in parts of southwest Alaska using better marine data, technology and gear.

The Bycatch Reduction and Research Act, introduced by U.S. Sens. Dan Sullivan, Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Nick Begich, would address research gaps in environmental data and improve monitoring of fisheries in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska.

It would also establish a fund for fishermen to purchase updated technology and trawl gear to limit seafloor contact and bycatch. That’s when harvesters accidentally catch species they’re not targeting.

The proposed legislation builds on recommendations from the federal Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, which concluded in 2024 and aimed to better understand how humans cause declines in fish and crab species, including through factors like bycatch.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: New bycatch reduction, research act introduced in Congress

January 12, 2026 — Alaska’s congressional delegation has introduced new legislation aimed at improving data on bycatch reduction in the Gulf of Alaska Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

The delegation announced the Bycatch Reduction and Research Act on Jan. 7, saying the aim is to improve marine environmental data collection, prioritize technology that supports research, bycatch reduction, protect marine seafloor habitat, and enhance electronic monitoring and electronic reporting in United States fisheries.

The legislation is drawing support from commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries entities.

“As both a commercial fisherman and a salmon scientist, I see the consequences of changing ocean conditions and management uncertainty on the water and in our communities,” said Michelle Stratton, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and a former member of the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force. “This legislation comes at a pivotal time. Our coastal communities and food systems need thriving fisheries, and for that we need thriving ecosystems.”

Read the full article at the The Cordova Times

ALASKA: Alaska troopers seize Kodiak trawl group’s electronics in bycatch probe

November 17, 2025 — Julie Bonney is a longtime, Kodiak Island-based representative of some of Alaska’s trawlers — a type of fishing boat that’s drawn increasing criticism over the years for accidental “bycatch” of salmon, halibut and other species.

Last week, Bonney was returning from a trip off the island when Alaska State Troopers seized her mobile phone and work laptop. The day before, investigators searched the offices of Bonney’s member-based business, the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, and seized all of its electronics.

Bonney was not arrested and no charges have been filed. But troopers, over the weekend, confirmed an active investigation into allegations that “multiple seafood processors” had been illegally profiting from salmon and halibut bycatch — further fueling scrutiny of an industry that’s already under attack.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

New turtle excluder device showing promising signs of protecting both juvenile turtles and maintaining shrimp catch

August 7, 2025 — A new turtle excluder device (TED) design being tested in the Gulf of Mexico, currently referred to as the Gulf of America by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, aims to save juvenile turtles from bycatch without diminishing shrimp catch. 

TEDs have long been used by shrimp trawlers to reduce sea turtle bycatch. The current industry standard, while successful at reducing bycatch of adult sea turtles, often fails to exclude juvenile turtles, which can fit between their 4 inch-spaced bars.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Latest ISSF report shows its members holding fast on commitment to sustainable tuna

July 23, 2025 — The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) recently released its annual compliance report, showing that during 2024, the 24 ISSF participating companies managed a 99.6 percent conformance rate.

The nonprofit organization tracks conformance across 33 different conservation measures, which range from submitting quarterly purchase data and only conducting transactions with purse-seine vessels that have received information on best practices for reducing bycatch from ISSF.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

LOUISIANA: Gulf menhaden fishery no threat to red drum, study finds

July 10, 2025 — A study of bycatch in the Louisiana menhaden purse seine fishery found that overall non-target fish species comprised 3.59 percent by weight – below the state’s restriction for no more than 5 percent, according to a July 8 report to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.

Capture of red drum as menhaden bycatch was calculated to account for 3.4 percent of red drum mortality in the state. Menhaden industry advocates welcomed the findings at the commission’s July meeting, saying the detailed data showed 30,142 redfish were taken by the fishery during 2024, “while recreational fishing is responsible for 96.6 percent by number of fish.”

“The study reaffirms what decades of science have consistently shown: Louisiana’s Gulf menhaden fishery is sustainable, selective, and not a threat to red drum populations,” the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition said in a statement after the report’s release.

The study was funded with a $1 million appropriation from the Louisiana state Legislature, and administered by the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission. Conducted by researchers with LGL Ecological Research Associates Inc. on board menhaden vessels for seven months during the 2024 fishing season, the study “represents the most detailed assessment of bycatch in the history of the Gulf menhaden fishery,” according to the menhaden coalition.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman