Effect on catch efficiency and bycatch by introducing an Excluder device in the trawl fishery for lesser sandeel (Ammodytes marinus)

Sampling of the North Sea trawl fishery for lesser sandeel (Ammodytes marinus) showed that 96% of the catch weight consisted of the target species, and experimental sea trials demonstrated that the observed small bycatch percentages of haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), mackerel (Scomber scombrus) and grey gurnard (Eutrigla gurnardus) could be significantly lowered by inserting a netting-based sorting device, an Excluder, in front of the codend. The sandeel fishery is conducted with small meshes in the codend, due to the small size and elongated body shape of this species. It is not mandatory for sandeel trawls to have any other selection devices than the small-meshed codend, and this can potentially cause problems with bycatch of unwanted species, if these are abundant on the fishing grounds. Therefore, we sampled the catch composition in this fishery and further, we compared the capture efficiency and species composition of a standard trawl, and one fitted with an additional sorting device called the Excluder. Overall, results showed small percentages of bycatch in the trips sampled and during the trials, the excluder significantly reduced the bycatches of mackerel, grey gurnard, and haddock above certain sizes. For other bycatch species results were inconclusive due to wide confidence limits affected by low bycatch numbers during the trials. The overall capture efficiency for the target species was not affected by adding the excluder in the trawl except for a significant reduction for a few semi-centimetre groups of the largest sizes of the species. These results highlight the potential of the Excluder as a bycatch reduction tool in the sandeel fishery for situations where bycatch can constitute a problem.