 Impacts of a bottom trawling exclusion zone on Snow Crab abundance and fish harvester behavior in the Labrador Sea, CanadaDarrell R.J. Mullowney, Corey J. Morris, Earl G. Dawe and Katherine R. Skanes Marine Policy, 2012, vol. 36, issue 3, 567-575 Abstract: The Hawke Box trawling exclusion zone off southern Labrador is a 8610km2 closed area implemented in 2003 to protect soft-shelled pre-recruit Snow Crab and juvenile cod from mortality imposed by shrimp trawling and other bottom-impact fisheries. This study utilizes survey, logbook, and observer data from the Snow Crab and Northern Shrimp fisheries to assess the effectiveness of the Hawke Box in protecting and possibly enhancing the Snow Crab resource off southern Labrador. The results indicate that the exclusion zone has failed to protect pre-recruit crabs largely due to a redistribution and intensification of directed Snow Crab effort inside the Box in the years following closure. This unexpected outcome resulted in a high level of fishery-induced mortality to pre-recruit crabs and masked any potential positive outcomes from the cessation of trawling. The shortcomings that contributed to the failure of this exclusion area are discussed in relation to the current state of knowledge on the effectiveness of marine protected areas in general as management tools for conserving aquatic resources. Keywords: Exclusion zone; Closed area; Bottom trawling; Snow Crab (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:36:y:2012:i:3:p:567-575 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2011.10.005 Access Statistics for this article Marine Policy is currently edited by Eddie Brown More articles in Marine Policy from Elsevier |
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