Effects of fish trap mesh size on species and size selectivity in the Australian North West Shelf trap fishery

M. Moran and J. Jenke

Fishbyte, 1990, vol. 8, issue 2, 8-13

Abstract: Trap-introduced fishing mortality of juvenile fish was seen as a potential problem in the developing fish trap fishery on the Australian North West Shelf. Line fishermen are concerned that traps are unselective. Research to investigate the reality of the problem and to assess large-mesh traps as a solution found that: 1) Standard 5 x 5 cm mesh traps do catch many small fish; 2) 10 x 10 and 15 x 5 cm mesh traps catch few small fish; 3) Large-mesh traps are less efficient for big fish; 4) The small fish caught tend to be small-bodied species, not juveniles of more valuable large-bodied species; 5) Mesh size appears to have effects on trap efficiency independent of simple escapement through the mesh. Since juvenile mortality is not yet considered a problem, continued use of standard mesh traps is recommended. Future research aimed at identifying nursery areas for valuable species is suggested to enable protective area closures to be used by management.

Keywords: Trap fishing; Trap nets; Mesh selectivity; Australia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://pubs.iclarm.net/Naga/FB_3108.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wfi:wfbyte:26458

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Fishbyte from The WorldFish Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by William Ko ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).