Southeast Alaska & Yakutat location map

Trawl Shrimp Fishery Research
Southeast Alaska & Yakutat Commercial Fisheries

 

Trawl shrimp fishery (northern pink shrimp, Pandalus eous; sidestripe shrimp, Pandalopsis dispar)

Projects

The F/V Mandi J getting ready to deploy a beam trawl.

Onboard Observing

In 2001, ADF&G shellfish biologists observed onboard several commercial beam trawl shrimp fishing vessels. The objectives of observing onboard beam trawl vessels were to:

  • gain a better understanding of operating conditions and constraints of the beam trawl shrimp fishery;
  • investigate species composition of beam trawl catch and bycatch;
  • describe the size and species composition of unsorted raw beam trawl shrimp catch;
  • improve documentation of the distribution of commercial grounds for northern and sidestripe shrimp; and to
  • begin to formulate ideas about how best to assess this fishery.
Northern pink shrimp, P. borealis, carrying eggs.

The beam trawl onboard observer program was curtailed in 2004 due to insufficient Department resources and sharp declines in beam trawl effort in response to very poor market conditions.

Beam Trawl Video

This video was taken by biologist David C. Love while observing onboard commercially fishing beam trawl vessels in the Petersburg/Wrangell area.
Beam Trawl Video ( 44,062 kB) (.wmv version)
Beam Trawl Video ( 38,760 kB) (.mpg version)

Dockside sampling

Due to the current small fishing effort there is currently no dockside sampling program for the trawl shrimp fishery. However, in the past data collected during dockside sampling was used to generate catch size frequencies. This data was used in the management plan for the fishery, and is useful for evaluating year class cohorts.

Publications authored by ADF&G Staff or contractors

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