Bycatch and the Northern Prawn Fishery, Australia

Anyone that thinks wild caught shrimp are a bad thing should only eat the pond raised variety. They taste like crap, are full of antibiotics and preservatives, are never actually IQF'd. Everything from sea gulls to sharks depend on the boats for supper. All commercial fishing is regulated, which makes everything more expensive... including your supper. Besides, commercial fisherman are a part of the sea... just like all the other creatures on it or in it. Some people just need a horse to ride and complain abou the imagined "pillage" of the sea. Same people think man is destroying the enviornment. They talk a lot about global warming. That turned out to not be true, so they now call it "climate change". Of course the climate is changing. It always has.

As I Shrimp Fisherman in Louisiana, US I enjoy watching how other countries catch shrimp. We do it the same style but a little different. Pretty much the same regulations and yes we also have to have TEDs.

Forget about the turtles and sharks for a second and think about the millions upon millions of sponges, jellyfish, sea stars, urchins, sea cucumbers, tunicates, snails, clams, anemones, zooplankton, non-target crustaceans, and many other invertebrates.

amazing

food!

Catch like no body business

yawns loudly so bs fisher shit./

The capture of turtles has been reduced by 99% - catches of sharks and rays have also been reduced (..) - BY HOW MANY % !?! This information is useless and suspicious without a number, it could be a very insignificant reduction. But the biggest bycatch problem of prawn fishing isn't the big animals, but the mind blowing amount of juvenile fish, moluscs..all individuals that have never spawned. Don't know about Australia, but some prawn fishing industries have catch rates of 20kg of bycatch for 1 kg of prawns. bon apetite!

I would hate to see the day when there are no fish left to catch.

ShT are those white things surrounding the net?

excellent video.. loved it!! wishes to all those who took the struggle to create this!

Why the porno tune?

Sitting here licking my lips.......

Good on you mate. I don't want to see any unnecessary bycatch but it seems you guys are doing your best to keep it at a minimal/acceptable level. Respect.

I worked on the Proteus back in the early 90's in the gulf. Men who worked on prawn trawlers back then made really good money. Now the industry is fucked from all that imported cheap shit. Price of fuel and low prices equals a dead and dying industry, its a shame because most Australians dont realise that imported stuff is no good for you.

The same tactics, lies, and over-regulation that is being used to take away American's access to our fisheries resources, is also happening in every other industry that harvests and uses every other type of natural resources (whether they be animal, vegetable, or mineral), and is not just happening in the USA. The usurpation of every person on the planets natural rights to have access to life sustaining natural resources, is happening all across the globe !!!. Stop eliminating the small boats !!

Yes, the small fish will be thrown back and the dead ones will become food for other animals. The use of hoppers (which hold the catch in sea water before sorting) keeps the prawns fresh and allows some of the small bycatch to survive. As I said in an earlier comment, no form of food production has zero impact on other species (including insects, rodents, small mammals, reptiles not to mention the displacement of native species due to farming). We work to minimise that impact in fisheries.

What happened to those small fish you catched, will they be thrown back to the sea even though most of them are dead?

And then they go and buy imported prawns from countries with poor fisheries management, dubious environmental protection and poor food safety standards???