Bord Iascaigh Mhara, Ireland Contact: Dominic Rihan (Rihan@bim.ie Conservation and Selectivity Trials
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In early February 2009 an Irish Ministerial Working Group was formed to look at the new effort and Technical conservation measures regulations introduced in 2009 by the EU as part of a Cod Recovery Plan for a number of areas. As a result of the delib-erations of the Working Group, BIM was requested to carry out a series of trials to look at gear options that could reduce cod catches in the Irish Sea and West of land and to assess the impacts of new mesh sizes introduced into the West of Scot-land area. These trials began in March 2009 and to date 5 sets of trials have been completed with as follows:
• “Supreme II” (Clogherhead) – Celtic Sea/Irish Sea testing a rigid grid, in-clined separator panel, and 160mm Square mesh panel for reduction of cod catches in prawn trawls.
• “Catherine-R” (Greencastle) – Analysis of the impact of new codend mesh sizes (120mm codend +120mm smp (12–15m from codend) for vesssels >
15m and 10mm codend +110mm smp (12–15m from the codend) for ves-sels < 15m required under new regulations in the West of Scotland Area and alternatives to these regulations. Only one option was tested 100mm +120mm codend (5–7m from the codend).
• “Green Isle” (Greencastle) – Continuation of trials above to assess alterna-tives which give low cod catches. The options tested against the baseline 120mm codend +120mm smp were 110mm codend +120mm smp (5–7m from the codend); 100mm codend with 160mm smp (5–7m codend);
100mm codend with 160mm smp (10–12m from the codend); and 80mm codend with 120mm smp (12–15m) against 100mm codend +120mm smp (5–7m from the codend)
• “Ocean Pioneer” (Union Hall) – Celtic Sea/Irish Sea testing a 200mm square mesh panel and a cutaway trawl with reduced top panel for reduc-tion of cod catches in prawn fisheries.
• “Paul Stephen” (Greencastle) - Experiments to assess the effect of position-ing of 120mm square mesh panels for cod, haddock and whitposition-ing selectivity in standard whitefish trawls. Square mesh panels at 6–9m, 9–12m and 12–
15m from the codline were tested.
• Two further sets of trials with different combinations of codends and square mesh panels commenced in June on two < 15m vessels fishing in the Celtic Sea. These trials are designed to gather selectivity data for smaller vessels working on mixed fisheries. These trials are due to be com-pleted by the end of July 2010.
During the period January – April 2010 engineering and observation trials with sort-ing grids have been ongosort-ing with three vessels from the East coast of Skerries “Mater Dei”, “Nausicca” and “Syracuse”. These trials have been carried out in the Irish Sea and the data collected formed the basis for a successful submission to the EU for ex-emption from the days at sea regime currently in operation for use of the grid. In addition underwater footage of a range of grids was collected on a small inshore
ves-sel. This footage helped to resolve some technical issues related to the grids being used as well as highlighting a few other issues that need to be addressed. In connec-tion with this BIM and the fishers involved attended two workshops hosted by the Scottish Government looking at gear options for reducing cod catches and also vis-ited Sweden to compare their experiences with Swedish fishers.
Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
During 2009 and 2010, BIM continued to work closely with industry to further utilize the Seafood Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) developed in the last two years. By the mid-2010 close to 100 vessels had entered the programme. In addition to the successful outcome for the two pelagic mackerel fisheries achieving MSC and the vessels in the southwest achieving the West Cork regional code of practice, Fuchsia, the Erris Inshore Fishermen’s Association has also undertaken a significant campaign to create a regional identity for the fish through the SEMS approach. The Industry also began the process of forming an SEMS Fishermen’s Association for those vessels that employ the SEMS approach, while the SEMS’s manual produced in 2008 has undergone its second iteration to incorporate the harmonization of a number of stan-dards and codes of practice that are applicable to the Irish Catching Sector. This document has gained recognition by FAO and by others as a high quality document, easily adaptable to suit any fishery.
Waste Management
In 2007 BIM set up a dedicated baling centre was setup in Tramore. This site has con-tinued to operate in 2008 and 2009 and to date a total of 89,000kg of nylon waste ma-terial has been collected from the industry with approximately 30% volume already having gone through the recycling process in recycling plants in the UK and China.
This represents a sizeable reduction in the amount of waste fishing gear being sent to landfill sites. An economic appraisal of the operation has now been carried out and an initial assessment to its viability on a commercial basis has been completed, which suggests that it would be viable particularly if some charge for transport costs were passed and also if other waste materials associated with the fishing industry were also recycled. It would seem that the extension of the service established is a worth-while exercise based on the benefit to the marine environment, as an alternative to sending to landfill and the positive re-use of the material in other industries. There is also evidence of a gradual change in attitude to waste disposal by industry when offered a route for recycling, which again is a positive outcome. A project looking at ways to recycled fishing gear into marine products has just commenced. This project is looking at manufacturing breakwater for a marina and also low drag trawl floats from recycled nets and will continue into 2011.
Fuel Efficiency
A study of the hydrodynamic efficiency of existing trawlers and ways of improving fuel efficiency by changes to hull design and hull appendages has been commis-sioned. This study is being carried out by Noel O’Regan of Promara Ltd, who has been working closely with BIM over the last few years on fuel efficiency initiatives.
Tank testing of the modified hull designs will be carried out in early March 2010 in the facility run by the Wolfson Unit based in Southampton University.
Albacore Tuna Tagging
BIM carried out a satellite tagging programme for bluefin tuna in 2003 and 2004 which resulted in three giant bluefin being tagged for the first time in the Northeast Atlantic with migratory routes tracked from Donegal to Portugal, the central Medi-terranean and the Bahamas. The technical knowledge gained from this programme has been used to tag Albacore tuna, a commercial species which has historically been underutilized by Irish vessels. Very short deployment periods were achieved for two fish released in 2008 but, with improvements in tagging technique, more successful deployments were achieved for two fish released in 2009. Fish 1 was released on 16 October 2009 off the southwest of Ireland and the tag remained attached to the fish for a period of 65 days before becoming detached and transmitting data southwest of Portugal). Analysis of the average depth of the fish during day and night revealed three distinct phases in diving behaviour as the fish moved south. This behaviour is similar to diving behaviour observed in archival tagged albacore in the North Pacific with a shallower distribution in summer related to shallow thermoclines and repeti-tive deep dives during winter when thermoclines are deeper. Fish 2 was released on 15 October and appears to have been eaten by a predator, given a sudden jump in temperature recorded, the failure of the device to record light level data for a period of about 9 days, and a dramatic change in depth preferences including sustained periods spent at or near the surface, before the tag was expelled, popped up and gan transmitting data. This work has provided exciting new information on the be-haviour of albacore in the North Atlantic for the first time. Now that the tagging technique has been perfected, more tagging earlier in the fishing season is needed to increase the sample size and provide more conclusive information on fish behaviour.
Acoustic Deterrents
A trial was carried out by in February 2009 to test if recordings of killer whale vocali-sations could have a deterrent effect on common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), ulti-mately with a view to incorporating the sound into an interactive deterrent device developed by BIM for use in pelagic trawl fisheries. Seven pairs of different re-cordings from killer whales were used during the trial on groups of common dol-phins located off the south coast of Ireland. Each pair of control and test signals contained background noise to ensure that if significant differences in response oc-curred that it would be possible to conclude that the dolphins responded to killer whale calls rather than any other sound stimulus. The background noise in the sam-ples slowly increased in amplitude during the first 30 s, so as to avoid a startle re-sponse from the rapid onset of an unfamiliar sound. For the test sequence five killer whale calls from the same recording were spliced into the recording after 30 s. The control and test treatments were presented to the same group of dolphins in random order. During the first trial no evasive behaviour was observed during the test peri-ods. As no reaction was observed a number of different killer whale sequences were tested subsequently but no changes in behaviour were recorded. A further study has just been completed in January 2010 on two further groups of dolphins off the south-east coast of Ireland. Again no effect was observed from either group.
Development of a fishery for Atlantic Saury
The Atlantic saury, (Scomberesox saurus), is a fish of the found in the fish in many parts of its range and suitable for canning and other inexpensive uses.
For a number of years Irish fishers have reported seeing large quantities of saury
around the Irish coast in the early autumn. Following some preliminary work in 2005 technical trials off the south west coast of Ireland were carried out in 2009 with lam-para nets. The lamlam-para is an artisanal method suited to smaller vessels which are able to fish in areas closed or otherwise inaccessible to larger boats by virtue of draft or similar restrictions. During daylight hours the method used to locate fish during was to observe feeding seabirds and to shoot around the area of the heaviest activity. This proved productive during daylight hours and small catches were made during the initial sets. At night the net was deployed with two submersible underwater fishing lamps using the natural behaviour of saury to be attracted to light. The night-time shots proved less productive, and there were some problems deploying the lampara net and the lights.