Eliminator trawl should avoid cod

Arnold Locker (Locker Trawlers, Whitby), a member of the NFFO (National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations) returned last week from a very successful trip to Rhode Island, USA where he examined a radical new trawl known as the Eliminator, which should massively reduce cod discards.

He said: “I think it will work, already there are 30 boats using it and they wouldn’t be using it if it didn’t work.  We should be able to avoid cod without impacting on the amount of haddock, whiting and squid caught, plus I expect there will be a fuel saving.”  Arnold explained that the Eliminator, which uses a mesh size of 2.4 metres in the belly, benefits from significantly less drag than standard trawls and allows bottom-dwelling fish to escape, whilst effectively catching the fish which swim above them in the water column.

Ken Arkley, Seafish gear technologist who joined Arnold Locker on this trip was also impressed: “This is a radical change in gear design, for a trawl targeting groundfish species, the mesh size is a lot bigger.  You can literally walk through the mesh!  Fishermen in Rhode Island face similar problems to fishermen in the UK and with this trawl, they have been able to avoid cod and other groundfish, whilst improving their catch rate of haddock and squid, to offset this loss.”  In Rhode Island, fishermen use a standard trawl to catch their groundfish quota, then swop to the Eliminator to catch haddock and squid, without exceeding their cod quota.

The next step is to trial the Eliminator in the North Sea and Arnold Locker is looking forward to seeing the results – his boat, along with 1 other will be trialing the new trawl in early December.  Cefas (the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science) which has initiated this project, with support from Seafish, are confident that should the trial be a success and the Eliminator becomes available in the UK, fishermen will be able to adapt to this radical change in gear design. 

Barrie Deas, Chief Executive of the NFFO, said: “This new gear represents a viable alternative to the Commission’s favoured management tools - reductions in cod TAC and effort restrictions.  In order to resist these blunt measures, which can only lead to increased discarding now that cod stocks are improving, we need to support cod avoidance as the solution.  As we move from cod collapse to cod recovery, we need to avoid cod using selective gear, spatial avoidance, temporal or seasonal avoidance or any other method, whilst ensuring a profitable fishery for other species.”

Dr Andrew Revill, fisheries scientist and gear technologist from Cefas who is leading this project, commented: “I’m very positive about it, and everyone is – the NFFO, Cefas and Seafish – our objectives are all closely aligned. This is ‘inclusive’ applied research rather than ‘exclusive’ research, and it means we are much more likely to get the most out of the trials. The early and meaningful collaboration between fishermen, technologists and scientists in this project is a positive feature and should pay dividends”.