The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (PSMFC) Pacific Fisheries Bycatch Program is a collaborative program established in 2008 and designed to develop techniques to reduce bycatch in West Coast fisheries. This program and its collaborative partners have been able to pursue a wide-ranging array of conservation engineering projects relevant to reducing bycatch in west coast trawl fisheries. These projects have provided valuable information to industry and management. Some of these projects include:

• Examining the use of artificial light to enhance the escapement of Chinook salmon in a Pacific hake midwater trawl using a   salmon excluder;
• Testing of flexible sorting grid excluders designed to reduce Pacific halibut bycatch in the west coast limited entry groundfish   bottom trawl fishery;
• Footrope modifications to ocean shrimp trawls to reduce eulachon bycatch and minimize disturbance rates of benthic   macroinvertebrates;
• Loaner underwater video camera systems for fishermen to borrow for their use in evaluating industry-designed bycatch
  reduction devices.

Program Partners & Funding

To date, program partners include the NOAA Fisheries - Northwest Fisheries Science Center-Marine Habitat Ecology group, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife - Marine Resources group, regional net manufacturers, and the West Coast fishing industry. Support for this program has been provided by the NOAA Fisheries Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program, and the NOAA Fisheries National Cooperative Research Program.

Additional Information

Visit the Pacific Fisheries Bycatch Program website at: www.psmfc.org/bycatch.

For more information contact, Mark Lomeli, Program Manager, by email to mlomeli@psmfc.org, or call 541.867.0544.