NOAA Fisheries is recommending 13 projects for funding to partners around the country to support innovative bycatch reduction research through its Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program.
Bycatch is catch that fishermen do not want, cannot sell, or are not allowed to keep. Bycatch of fish, marine mammals, or turtles can have significant biological, economic, and social impacts. Preventing and reducing bycatch is a shared goal of fisheries managers, the fishing industry, and the environmental community.
Working in collaboration with fishermen and industry partners, the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program has supported solutions to some of the top bycatch challenges facing our nation's fisheries. Successes include:
- Funding studies related to mitigating barotrauma of reef fish through the use of descending devices—descending devices are now required to be available for use on vessels in many U.S. fisheries
- A dual sorting flexible grid system that has shown to reduce under-sized sablefish bycatch by more than 45 percent, while maintaining catches of adult sablefish and other target fish species
At this point in the selection process, the application approval and obligation of funds is not final. Each of these applications are being “recommended.” This is not an authorization to start the project and is not a guarantee of funding.
Read brief descriptions of the recommended projects.
2024 Recommended Recipients by Region
Northeast/Mid-Atlantic
- Blue Planet Strategies: $191,853
- Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County: $179,262
- Lift Labs, Inc.: $228,304
- University of New England: $238,940
Southeast/Gulf of Mexico
- Executive Office of the U.S.V.I. Government: $200,000
- Florida Atlantic University: $248,482
- Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi: $249,900
West Coast
- Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission: $245,743
- Sub Sea Sonics, LLC: $193,391
Alaska
- University of Alaska, Fairbanks: $197,595
- FishNext Research LLC: $199,998
Pacific Islands
- International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, Inc.: $205,625
- Pacific Islands Fisheries Group: $74,328
