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TEAM 2 PROPOSED SOLUTION: work in progress
(Please edit as you see fit. This list has already been sent to the regulations group as a preliminary sketch of what we would like to see regulated but by no means is it complete or entirely accurate and will need editing and additions as we learn more.)
IMPROVEMENT IN FISHING TECHNOLOGY (SHORT TERM)
General Goals:
- Decrease harmful effects of fishing technology on the environment.
- Increase selectivity of fish caught both by species and size, to the purpose of drastically reducing bycatch.
Suggestions:
(Not all of the solutions are compatible but are simply suggestions as some ways in which the aformentioned goals can be met)
- Use fishing methods that are more environmentally friendly such as handlining or trapping rather than bottom trawling because trawls stir up sediment (turbidity is harmful to many fish species as well as bivalves), destroy fish habitat, destroy plants and animals that live along the bottom, etc) whereas handlining and other methods do not contact the bottom and thus do not harm the nonliving environment.
- Rather than trawling or fishing X amount of hours and pulling up the nets to see what and how much has been caught, putting put sensors on nets that measure tension or width of the net or other factors that can give fishermen an estimation of the amount of fish in the nets so that the quota allowance will not be exceeded resulting in all of the fish over the for example, 500 pound limit are thrown back dead into the ocean.
- Use Add nanosensors along the bottom of a trawling net nets that would keep the net a certain fixed height above the ground to prevent damaging the bottom and using sea floor. Also, use electrified ticklers to scare fish into the nets rather than using the current chains that which scrape up the sea floor to scare fish into the nets.
- Creating Create and implementing sonar and other tracking devices to determine size (and from that age if possible) and species before nets are put into the water to limit the amount of bycatch of unwanted species or fish that are too small.
- Creating Create and implementing implement devices to sort fish before catching based on instinctual defensive responses of other means such as electrofishing using certain frequencies which attract (and even paralyze if desired) fish of certain size and repel others away in order to lower bycatch.
- Putting Put escape vents for in commercial nets to allow the escape of large sea mammals that get become trapped in fishing netsinside.
- Using Use diamond mesh instead of square mesh because square mesh does not close when towed and thus small fish can get through the mesh which would make net size regulations more effective.
REGULATION OF FISHING TECHNOLOGY (LONG TERM)
*Regulation should occur before fish are caught rather than after as the most effective way of preventing overfishing. For example, regulation should regulate net drag speed and net mesh size rather than throwing away fish that exceed the pound limit though that too should be in place in a modified form*
- Bottom Trawling should not be allowed in communities deeper than X (More research is needed in classifying sediment type according to depth or extensive underwater terrain maps showing sediment composition so that bottom trawling is absolutely not allowed in deep ocean where recovery is slow but perhaps allowable in very shallow areas that show little or no damage in the succeeding months though bottom trawling should be phased out as newer technology is implemented.)
- Where Regulate where mobile gear (trawls and other similar fishing methods) and non-mobile gear (such as lines or traps) can be used and cannot be used in conjunction with the mapping of underwater terrain. Mobile gear catches greater volumes of fish, but can be much less selective than non-mobile gear. (Mobile However, mobile gear is much more cost effective though since more fish can be caught in less time.)
- For mobile gear, regulating we should regulate at what speed nets can be dragged so as to maximize the benefit of increased mesh size and prevent fish smaller than the size of the netting from being . At high speeds, fish that would normally be able to escape from the netting are trapped by the larger fish who that are pressed against the end of the net by the high speeds. (Trawling typically occurs at about anywhere from 3 knots up to perhaps 5 knots as an estimate.)
- Setting a minimum mesh size that nets cannot exceed and shape of the netting as well (though more research is needed as to what size the this minimum size should be and how different species fishing should be regulated in that regardfor various species.)
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PROBLEMS in the way between current generation fishing technology and next generation technology:
- Next Gen is not currently cost-efficient
- Next Gen is not currently completely feasible
- Enforcement of regulations in regards to fishing technology is difficult and not cost-effective
- Inertial resistance to change
- Current technology is already efficient at tracking and catching fish (though not selective enough)
- Once catching what we want through selectivity is achieved, more regulations will be need to prevent overfishing of species we want
TEAM 3 -- CLIMATE CHANGE
- See attached article (you can skip ahead to the last few paragraphs if you are short on time) want