Welcome to our blog series, Research Highlights! On the second Monday of each month, we debut newly published fisheries research by our women of fisheries colleagues. If you have research you would like to highlight and share with our readers, submit a nomination form!

This Month’s Research Highlight:
Moncrief-Cox, H.E., J.K. Carlson, G.S. Norris, M.C. Wealti, B.M. Deacy, and E. Scott-Denton. 2020.  Development of Video Electronic Monitoring Systems to Record Smalltooth Sawfish, Pristis pectinata, Interactions in the Shrimp Trawl Fisheries of the Southeastern United States, with Application to Other Protected Species and Large Bycatches. Marine Fisheries Review 82(3-4):1-8.

I may be telling my age here, but this month’s research highlight takes me back to 1994 and the Forest Gump scene when his friend Bubba mentions, “…shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich.” For those who have never seen the movie (gasp!), you can catch this clip here.

Shrimp. As you probably can tell by now, shrimp is one of my favorite things to eat, and I’m not alone. In fact, it is the most popular seafood consumed in the United States, driving commercial landings that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year. For managing commercial fisheries like this one, it is important to have good estimates of catch (and bycatch) and that requires monitoring on a variety of levels. Yet, only a small fraction of the roughly 1,400 commercial shrimping vessels in the Southeastern U.S. commercial fleet is monitored by at-sea observers. Increasing the number of at-sea observers isn’t ideal given the heavy cost associated with that type of monitoring.   

Perhaps, then, the answer could lie with technology. Electronic Monitoring, or EM, to be specific. This type of technology uses video cameras and gear sensors to record fishing activities and is specifically tailored to each industry and region based on their fishing practices.

That brings us to new research recently published by lead author Heather Moncrief-Cox, Fisheries Biologist with Riverside Technology, Inc, a contracting company that supports NOAA Fisheries. She and her colleagues worked to develop a video monitoring system that could record shrimp fishing activities for catch statistics including the incidental capture of endangered species.

A particular species of concern is the Smalltooth Sawfish Pristis pectinata which is susceptible to shrimp trawls due to their unique saw-like rostrum, which can easily get entangled in the netting. It is considered a type of ray and typically found in shallow coastal areas along the south Atlantic. Due to habitat loss and declining numbers, it became the first marine fish species to receive federal protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2003. 

No Smalltooth Sawfish and only one Loggerhead Sea Turtle Caretta caretta was detected in 169 tows in this pilot study. This low bycatch hindered the analysis aspect of the study, but it’s very good news for the industry. It shows that bycatch reduction methods and devices are working. On the flip side, it may also mean that the Smalltooth Sawfish populations are so low that they are not being encountered as much. As management efforts continue and populations hopefully increase, monitoring of possible interactions of this species and the shrimp trawling fleet will be paramount. 

Overall, Heather Moncrief-Cox and her colleagues demonstrated that EM technology holds a lot of promise. She notes, “We were successful in identifying multiple species of catch and bycatch through video review, in a faster time period than an on-board observer. Reviewers could identify animals as small as rock shrimp, along with sharks, rays, and larger finfish. While we didn’t encounter a Smalltooth Sawfish, the evidence supports that it is possible for these interactions to be recorded accurately through these systems.” Of course, as with any study, the lessons learned are many. Camera systems must be adjustable and adaptable, and that increased flexibility will only improve the ability to record fishing activities under a variety of conditions. The quest for improving this technology will continue in efforts to increase monitoring with less cost and to help us better understand our commercial fisheries. It is something that more and more fishers are getting behind.    

“The world of fisheries observing is changing, and electronic technologies are paving the way. We will always need humans to take biological samples, which are vital for stock assessments and overall understanding of fish populations, but electronic technologies improve our data collection processes,” concludes Heather Moncrief-Cox. 

Now, what to have for dinner. I’m thinking shrimp creole. 

The full manuscript can be found and downloaded here:
https://doi.org/10.7755/MFR.82.3-4.1