Final Report on EFP 05-02 to develop a workable salmon excluder device for the Bering Sea pollock fishery

January 20, 2008 John Gauvin Principal Investigator Gauvin and Associates LLC John Gruver Pollock Industry Coordinator United Catcher Boats Association With technical and other assistance from: Dr. Craig Rose Alaska Fisheries Science Center Executive Summary: This report details the results of tests on salmon excluders conducted from fall of 2005 to March of 2007 under EFP 05-02. The various stages of field trials evaluated several versions of square mesh funnel excluders and a new excluder design called the flapper excluder. The primary focus was at first to attempt to increase salmon escapement rates as well as to eliminate or reduce the entrainment of pollock on the leading edge of the excluder. Another objective was to verify the results of earlier excluder performance without the potential influence of a recapture net. Finally, the winter 2007 trials were devoted to evaluating a new approach to excluding salmon called the flapper excluder. This latter device is essentially a sheet of weighted webbing covering the escapement portals during towing which prevents escapement during fishing. The flapper sheet is designed to sink when the vessel slows to approximately one-half the normal towing speed thereby allowing salmon escapement to occur at that time. The report describes each device and its performance from tests done under EFP 05-02 thereby providing an overview of the progress on salmon excluders to date. Background information on previous research on salmon bycatch reduction devices: The initial motivation to begin research on salmon excluder devices occurred in 2002 when we were provided an opportunity to evaluate the behavior of salmon and pollock swimming inside a Bering Sea pollock trawl. This came about through a research charter conducted by Dr. Craig Rose (Alaska Fisheries Science Center) who had successfully placed an underwater camera system inside a pollock net to observe differences in behavior of the target and incidental catch species. This video provided evidence to confirm the expectation that salmon are not only stronger swimmers than pollock, but they also sometimes (not always) swim above the pollock. Most importantly, the video confirmed that salmon at times make sustained bursts of forward progress at normal towing speeds. Pollock appear incapable of this, steadily dropping back toward the codend. These observed behavioral differences revealed the possibility to create selectivity based on differences in swimming ability by providing escape portals accessible only to fish swimming forward in the trawl. It was also considered likely that manipulating the flow of water through that section of the net could enhance escapement behavior.

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This was originally accomplished by putting a sharply-tapered mesh structure inside the intermediate section of the trawl. This forced all of the fish moving back to pass through a small portion of the trawls cross-section. Fish passing back through this structure and then swimming forward around it could move into an area of slower water flow with escape portals cut into the walls of the trawl itself. The main classes of these structures were: 1) tunnels which attached to the top and sides of the trawl at their forward end and to the bottom riblines along their length, and 2) funnels, which attached to top, bottom and sides of the trawl at their forward end streaming free aft of that point. We found that these structures needed to be built of square-mesh netting to achieve the necessary tapered shapes. The tunnel excluder used during the 2003 EFP included large escapement portals installed at the sides and top of the intermediate just forward of the aft end of the tunnel. This, it was hoped, would provide an escapement opportunity for salmon while retaining pollock. A recapture net was attached over the escape portals to retain escaping fish, allowing escape rates to be measured. The recapture net was held open by water kites, providing approximately six feet of clearance around the portals and hopefully minimizing any inhibition of escapes. Field testing of this tunnel device was done in several stages. When the device was functioning properly, significant salmon escapement was achieved with minimal pollock escapement. However, the tunnel excluder design had inherent problems. Underwater video obtained during the field trials showed that the tunnel had significant potential for clogging when pollock catch rates were high or when fishing occurred where jellyfish were dense. Animals were entrained against the net near the excluder under those conditions. These problems were confirmed in subsequent independent trials of the tunnel excluder by fishermen during the winter pollock season following the first EFP project in the fall of 2003. Entrainment and net damage occurred where the square-mesh tunnel excluder was attached to the diamond-mesh of the trawl, particularly at the lower corners, where the attachment changed from around the trawl to along the trawl. For this reason, the tunnel excluder was abandoned in favor of a slightly different approach for changing the flow of water in the trawl intermediate. In the later stages of the 2003-2004 EFP, we opted to focus on a funnel design to address the potential for clogging of the tunnel. The switch to a funnel excluder design was done to attempt to provide a better transition for fish (or jellyfish) as they passed through the excluder. The funnel would still create the slower water in the area aft of the back end of the funnel device (above and to the sides). A Beta version of the funnel was tested in the final stage of trials under the 2003-2004 EFP. This trial showed impressive Chinook escapement (over 40%), but it was also clear that the funnel itself did not prevent the clogging problems seen with the tunnel excluder. Video and sonar observations indicated that entrainment of pollock was related to the direct connection of the square mesh funnel, whose forward edge has a fixed diameter, to the diamond mesh body of the trawl, which easily expands when animals press against it. This created pockets in the trawl, ahead of the excluder, that filled with fish; distorting and eventually damaging the trawl. Research conducted under EFP 05-02: Our investigations under EFP 05-02 from fall of 2005 to winter of 2007 focused primarily on improvements to the funnel excluder device that was the endpoint our 2003-2004 EFP efforts. In

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the application for EFP 05-02, our research plan outlined potential adjustments to the funnel excluder to help prevent what was described in our application as clogging and other water flow problems. One adjustment that was envisioned was a modification to the mesh taper ratio of the funnel, to make the forward diameter of the funnel larger. Another was the addition of a diamond mesh buffer strip to attempt to avoid the rigidity of the square mesh funnel. An additional aspect of the EFP 05-02 research plan was to ground truth previous results, based on use of recapture nets, with tests that relied on paired comparisons (tows with and without the excluder). The objective here was to confirm the findings from our earlier research removing any potential effect of the recapture net. The issue of the reliability of tests with a recapture net merits some explanation. After receiving a presentation of our findings from the earlier EFP, pollock fishermen were concerned that pollock escapement rates might actually be much higher than we observed in our trials. The masking of pollock escapement rates might be due to the design of the recapture net used in the 2004 experiments. Their concern was that as the recapture net filled, the water kites might no longer provide sufficient lift, allowing the hood of the recapture net to be pulled down in a manner that would reduce access to the escapement portals. The potential underestimation of pollock escapement is an obvious concern for fishermen who must consider whether to use the excluder in the regular pollock fishery. The collective experience with controlled tests of bycatch reduction devices has pointed out the potential for recapture devices to mask problems or performance differences that would otherwise occur if the device were used without a recapture net. Such concerns therefore merited consideration. For this reason we explicitly incorporated modifications to the recapture net to prevent catch drag from reducing its opening into the work plan for EFP 05-02. Additionally, we devised a set of tests of the excluder that attempted to use paired comparisons in lieu of a recapture net. Another aspect of the use of a recapture net was the possibility that it might be leading us to underestimate salmon escapement rates. We noted this from video taken during the 2004 trials: salmon were observed in the recapture net (fish that had escaped) while the net was being towed, but when the water flow was reduced during haulback (removal of the net sounder), these salmon effectively reversed their escapement. Without this video, the outcome would have been overlooked, and the rate of salmon escapement would have been underestimated. To address this, the plan for the 05-02 EFP was to devise a way to prevent salmon that had escaped to the recapture net from reversing their escapement. This was done with the addition of a one-way valve or recapture net tunnel in the aft portion of the recapture net. While all of these ancillary issues were of interest for our continuing research, the main focus was to resolve entrainment problems with the funnel excluder. Given the somewhat serendipitous progress on the funnel excluder device accomplished during its first trials in our 2003-2004 EFP (Chinook salmon escapement rates of over 40% and pollock loss rates of approximately 1-2%), the specific focus for EFP 05-02 was therefore to address the performance problems encountered with the Beta version of the funnel excluder. The selectivity gains from a device that allows for Chinook salmon escapement rates of approximately 40% with minimal pollock escapement (generally <2%) were clearly attractive to

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the overall goal of finding a practical way to reduce salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery. Problems with the device during some of our experimental tows as part of the 2004 EFP tests and later during subsequent trials by fishermen outside the EFP, however, indicated that use of the excluder in the regular fishery was not yet feasible. The critical question for EFP 05-02 was to find out whether these problems could be circumvented sufficiently to allow for the dayto-day usage of the device. Detailed description of the funnel salmon excluders tested in EFP 05-02 Installed at the beginning of the four inch section of a typical Bering Sea pollock trawl intermediate, the funnel excluder is a tapered square mesh funnel inserted inside the trawl intermediate to change the water flow in the net. Figure 1 depicts the approximate location where the funnel excluder was inserted in the trawl for our trials. Note that the excluder is placed at the beginning of the section of the trawl where meshes are of a size that will retain adult pollock, well ahead of the trawl codend.
Fig. 1. Diagram of a mid-water trawl with the position of the funnel salmon excluder indicated.

The general principle of the funnel excluder is that while it is being towed, the water moving down the trawl is forced through the tapered square mesh funnel which reduces the diameter of the trawl at a faster rate (taper) than normally occurs. Over a distance of approximately six meters, the tapered square mesh funnel effectively reduces the diameter of the intermediate by approximately one-fourth. This is a far faster taper than that of would the trawl itself. Figure 2 illustrates the square mesh funnel inserted into the trawl as described above.
Fig. 2. Diagram of a square mesh funnel excluder
Port top and side escapement holes

In addition to creating a way for salmon that area swimming forward to access the escape portals, the effect of the funnel is also to increase the speed of the water moving down the trawl intermediate as it passes through the aft end of the funnel. In the design phase of our work on funnels, we were able to measure an increase in water speed in a controlled experiment performed at a flume tank using a one-fourth scale model. Another notable design feature is that an area of slower water is created around (outside) the aft end of the funnel. This slower water, called a lee, is an important part of the mechanism for salmon escapement as is explained

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below. The actual creation of a lee outside of the aft end of the funnel was also documented in our flume tank research. The intent behind inserting a fast-tapering square mesh funnel into the trawl is to induce salmon as they move forward to move up into the area of reduced water flow after passing through the aft end of the funnel. The contrast in water flow between the aft opening of the funnel and the surrounding water should facilitate that movement. To allow the salmon to escape the trawl, large diamond-shaped escapement portals were cut into the trawl intermediate surrounding the funnel. These were sufficiently large to allow easy egress of salmon that move into the slower water area. The escapement portals are installed in the top and at the sides of the intermediate. The selectivity concept here is that pollock, being inferior swimmers compared to salmon, upon passing through the funnel, will be unable to swim forward into the area around the funnel. Hence, they will be unable to utilize the escapement portals above and to the sides of that area. Pollock should therefore be far less likely to escape than salmon, hence a positive selectivity advantage should be created with the excluder. Performance objectives for the funnel excluder: One of the performance objectives we adopted for a viable salmon excluder in the research plan for EFP 05-02 was that the device would allow a significant fraction of the salmon to escape through the excluder unharmed while retaining a very high percentage of the pollock catch. The selectivity advantage of the excluder must grossly favor salmon bycatch reduction over pollock loss because a narrow margin of selectivity could require more pollock fishing to make up for the forfeited pollock catch. Given that salmon bycatch rates can be highly variable, any increased pollock fishing as a result of an excluder with a low selectivity margin might actually result in an increase in salmon bycatch. In addition to the selectivity objectives, the device must also be made of commonly available and affordable materials, and it must be devoid of handling and real-world use problems which would make it difficult or impractical to use in the regular pollock fishery. Performance of the funnel excluder observed in trials with a recapture net under EFP 0502 Overall escapement rates for Chinook salmon during tests of second generation funnel device excluders are reported below in the Table 1. Chinook escapement rates ranged from 33-36%. Pollock escapement remained below 1.5%. While nominally lower than the average Chinook salmon escapement rates for the tests of the first version of the funnel excluder in 2004, our experiments were not designed to test whether the differences in average escapement rates were different from one test to the next, so we can only say that escapement rates were in the same range as those obtained from the first (2004) version of the funnel excluder.

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Table 1. Performance of several versions of the funnel excluder in EFP trials 2005-2006.

EFP field research stage Winter '05 Winter '06 Fall '06

No. tows total 9 11 16

No. tows used in % escapement pollock % escapement chinook Analysis (by weight) salmon (by number) 7 8 11 0.70% 1.40% 1.20% 35% 36% 33%

At first glance, the test of later-generation funnel excluders with a recapture net seemed to produce somewhat lower but roughly the same selectivity results. As will be explained below, however, this is not the whole story because our work to reduce problems with the flow of fish through the excluder uncovered new information that suggested the problem was bigger than we originally envisioned. Essentially, the clogging issue encountered with the tunnel excluder and what we uncovered from research on funnel excluders were likely the same issue- bulges in the net ahead of the excluder that were sometimes extreme. One positive result, however was that the modifications to the design and construction of the recapture net did seem to resolve issues with its performance, allowing for more certainty in our results regarding pollock and salmon escapement rates. This was true at least when the excluder was working properly, which as will be seen below, was not always the case. To understand why we feel the escapement rates we measured do not tell the whole story of how the excluder performs, one first has to understand something about the methods we used to test the excluder. During the earlier EFP, there was considerable concern over the reliability of results with recapture nets in terms salmon escapement rates: we had observed that some of the salmon that escaped were able to return to the main net when the vessel slowed down during haulback of the net. To address this issue of reversed salmon escapement, the recapture net was modified by adding a one-way valve or recapture net tunnel to the aft section of the recapture net. The recapture net tunnel prevented reverse escapement from occurring because in order to move back through the valve, a fish in the recapture net would have to swim through the middle of the tunnel. This would be unlikely given that with the lower water flow during a slowdown, the ability of a salmon to find a way back through the funnel is thought to be low. The recapture net tunnel is depicted in Figure 3. The recapture net tunnel was used in all tests of funnel excluders starting in 2005. Note that the recapture net sits above the intermediate of the trawl and is flown by water kites (depicted by the striped bands in the Figure 3). The kites are designed to create lift and sufficient distance between the escapement portals and recapture net to allow salmon to escape. At different stages of our research from 2005-2007, sonar and video were used to ensure that the different components of the recapture net were working as designed and that it took the intended shape during testing.
Fig. 3.
Recapture Net Attaches 20 meshes aft of seam

Recapture Device
100 meshes long
12 m d diamond mesh buffer strip

Escapement Holes
100 meshes long 100 meshes long

Recapture Device Tunnel

Recapture Codend
75 meshes long

25 m 116 Clean
= 90 Bars

168 Clean 168 Clean

116 Clean

8" Section

50 Meshes

53 meshes

66 Clean

Packer Tube 4" Section 100 md 7 pts. / 2 bars

4" Section 75 md

4" Section 100 md 3 pt. / 2 bar

4" Straight Tube 100 md

4" Section 100 md 3 pts. / 2 bar

Installation of salmon excluder in Destination's Swan Midwater Trawl

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A second modification to the recapture net was done to reduce the potential for weight (escaped pollock and salmon that accumulate in the recapture net codend) in the back of the recapture net to pull the net down over the escapement portals. Overall, we felt that for the earlier version of the recapture net, the method of attachment of the front section of the recapture net held some potential for this to occur. This was because strain from the recapture codend could pull directly on the forward parts of the recapture net. Starting in 2005, the design of the recapture net was changed so that the recapture net was attached directly to the trawl intermediate for all but the very aft section of the recapture net. In this configuration, the recapture codend is supported by the top riblines of the trawl intermediate, allowing it to carry a substantial load of fish with little effect on the forward parts of the recapture net. Modifications to the funnel excluder: Table 2 lists the array of modifications to the funnel device and testing methods that were done to correct for problems with the funnel excluder. This culminated in the final stage in 2007 where the funnel excluder was replaced with a flapper device excluder. The idea of the flapper in lieu of the funnel was to attempt to achieve salmon escapement without any modifications to the net that would slow down the flow of water and possibly create a bulge during regular towing. Prior to that final decision to move away from the funnel excluder, however, our tests essentially attempted to remedy the problems with the funnel excluders. This work started with adding a diamond mesh buffer strip to the front part of the excluder. The next attempt focused on changing the taper of the funnel to help fish flow through it. The main issue here is that we noted in our EFP tests (and fishermen undertaking independent trials noted the same as well) that when pollock catch rates were high, loss of door spread sometimes occurred. This, as we later learned from underwater video and sonar images, resulted from pollock becoming pinned at the front area of the excluder where the funnel is attached to the intermediate.
Table 2. Summary of EFP Fieldwork under EFP 05-02.
Field Season Fall 2005 Fall 2005 Winter 2006 Fall 2006 Winter 2007 EFP Vessel F/T Arctic Fjord F/V Destination F/V Destination F/T Northern Eagle F/V Pacific Prince Device Tested Square mesh funnel Square mesh funnel w/diamond buffer strip Modified square mesh funnel Square mesh funnel and pre-flapper Square mesh and diamond mesh flappers Method Paired comparisons Recapture net Recapture net Two recapture nets Recapture net

From what we observed through various methods of detection, when pollock catch rates are high, there is a chance that pollock can become pinned ahead of the excluder. When pollock become pinned, this in fact tends to collect additional pollock as the net bulges and flow through the excluder becomes even further reduced. On these occasions, large bulges in the trawl intermediate result. In our testing, we have observed that extreme degrees of bulge in the net can damage the webbing of the intermediate where the excluder is attached. In some of these cases, the bulge can become so large that a large tear in the intermediate can result. A tear of this sort is extremely problematic for testing with a recapture net. This is because with the attachment point of the recapture net ahead of the excluder, the tear can allow all the fish moving down the net to enter the recapture net. This is a problem because the recapture net is

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built of lighter than normal materials so that it will fly above the trawl. The device is simply not designed for this volume of fish. Figure 4 is a sonar image taken during our 2005 EFP of the trawl intermediate with pollock pinned against the leading edge of the excluder. The webbing with fish pinned against it is indicated by dark red ahead of the excluder funnel. A bulge in the trawl intermediate can be seen there. Webbing without fish pinned against it is indicated by light green. Fish passing into the recapture net in the image also show up as red because they are seen in a cross section of the intermediate as they pass through the escapement portals. Note that the recapture net can be seen above the intermediate in the image and it retains the intended shape and position at the point in time that the image was taken. The sonar image in fig. 4 is from a tow where loss of door spread was observed yet the net was not damaged, implying a moderate bulge.
Fig. 4: Sonar image of the recapture net and trawl intermediate with pollock pinned against the leading edge of the excluder.

Modifications to the funnel such as buffer strips and a more gradual tapering of the funnel do appear to have helped control the potential for loss of door spread and bulging from pollock that become pinned. But to understand this in the context of our results in terms of salmon and pollock escapement, one has to fully understand our experimental methods. Our field tests had the specific objective of catching approximately 80 metric tons of groundfish per haul. This allowed for a greater number of hauls and the ability to measure salmon escapement under a variety of fishing conditions. When considering the results from the Table 1, (escapement rates that we achieved in the various trials of excluder modifications), one has to note that our efforts to keep catch per tow at less than 80 metric tons could well have minimized the tendency to pin fish and create bulges. To understand this issue fully, note that Table 1 above reports the number of tows for each field test. In all of our funnel excluder tests, the number of tows counted in the test differs from the overall number in the experiment. This is because when a large amount of pollock become pinned and a tear was created, our recapture net design tended to ramp the fish out of the trawl intermediate at the attachment point for the excluder. These fish would often end up in the recapture net. Larger than anticipated amounts of fish in the recapture net can cause the lighter webbing in the recapture net body to tear during retrieval of the net up the stern ramp. Hence,

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when there was a tear in the recapture net that was large enough to allow escapement of the fish in the recapture net, the amount of pollock or salmon in the recapture net was no longer comparable to the regular catch for purposes of the experiment. The lack of a reliable experimental control on the fish in the recapture net thus forced us to ignore these hauls in the final data analysis. This unfortunate side effect reduced the amount of usable data and our confidence in the results. Salmon and pollock escapement rates from these bulge tows remain unknown. Problems with the funnel eventually lead to interest in alternative excluder designs: After trying several different approaches to resolving the problem with the funnel and its tendency to create bulges, we gradually started to look at other concepts for allowing salmon to escape a pollock trawl without the use of a square mesh funnel or any other device that serves to affect the flow of fish through the trawl. Additional reason for looking at other escapement mechanisms was feedback indicating similar problems we received from several pollock captains who used the funnel excluder in the regular pollock fishery. In those informal trials, the economics of regular pollock fishing were fully in play. Hence fishermen were not limiting catches to 80 metric tons per tow or avoiding areas with high pollock catch rates. For our tests, areas with high catch rates were not specifically avoided, but because the objective was to keep catches under 80 tons, there was no need to fish in the high catch rate areas and doing so could damage the net and slow down the testing as well as create a considerable amount of repair work. Another motivation for trying a different kind of excluder came from video observations during EFP trials where salmon that had passed by the excluder without escaping were seen swimming forward and attempting to escape during slowdowns of the vessel. Such slowdowns normally occur when the net sounder is being removed from the net headrope on each tow. Vessels also slow down periodically when turning. From our video observations, we noticed salmon that did not utilize the excluder as they moved back through the funnel were apparently able to generate sufficient stamina to stay out of the codend (where they would be expected to be drowned). Some of these salmon were apparently able to move forward as the vessel slowed. In an attempt to take specific advantage of this observed behavior, we decided in the subsequent tests to add sufficient weight to the upper portion of the funnel (with either lead line or chain) to allow the funnel to collapse with the lower water flow force on it as the vessel slowed to approximately one-half of towing speed. As will be explained below, this escapement mechanism was of considerable interest at first as a way to boost escapement for the funnel excluder and later as a stand-alone escapement mechanism for the flapper excluder.
Fig. 5. Depiction of a weighted funnel excluder during a slowdown
Port top and side escapement holes

Aft

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Tests of the flapper device in March of 2007 The flapper excluder device was first tested in the winter of 2007, the last stage of field work under EFP 05-02. The concept of this excluder was simply to have a sheet of weighted net material that is designed to flow back over and cover the escapement portals when towing. For our Beta test of the flapper in March of 2007, 200 pounds of one-half inch leaded line were added along the length of the flap (sheet of webbing guarding the escapement portals in a forward to aft orientation. This amount of weight for the initial test of the flapper was arrived at somewhat intuitively through our experiences with the amount of weight added to the top section of the square mesh funnel in 2006. The amount of weight added is critical to any device so that it will collapse during slowdowns but not during regular towing. The weighted sheet of the flapper is attached to the trawl intermediate at the forward section but not attached in the sides or back. So if the amount of weight added is correct, the sheet will act as a ramp to help usher the salmon out of the net as they moved forward during the slowdowns. Figure 6 depicts the flapper excluder while towing (top panel) and after having descended during a slow down of the vessel (bottom panel) to allow salmon escapement. The text accompanying the figures provides a summary of the workings of the flapper device.

Figure 6.
Flapper valve panel Escapement Holes

168 Clean

116 Clean

66 Clean
3" Sq. Mesh (1.5" per Bar)

Packer Tube 4" Section 100 md 7 pts. / 2 bars

4" Section 100 md 3 pt. / 2 bar

4" Section 100 md 3 pts. / 2 bar

Flapper Style Excluder Position While Towing - note that Flapper Panel
held against the inside walls of the trawl intermeadiate by water flow.
Flapper valve panel Escapement Holes

168 Clean

116 Clean

66 Clean

Packer Tube 4" Section 100 md 7 pts. / 2 bars

4" Section 100 md 3 pt. / 2 bar

4" Section 100 md 3 pts. / 2 bar

Flapper Style Excluder Position During Haulback Slowdown - note that Flapper
Panel has dropped due to the reduced water flow and has collapsed forming a "ramp" that guides salmon swimming forward up and out the escapement holes.

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Testing protocol during the March 2007 trial of the flapper excluder At the outset of the flapper tests, some pre-test tows were made to verify some basic information about the performance of the flapper excluder. For these tows, a video camera was mounted on the net to determine whether the amount of weight added to the back of the flapper was adequate. The main issue here was to establish that the sheet covered the escapement portals during normal towing speeds and that the sheet did descend during slowdowns and did take the expected ramp shape. Fortunately, our initial starting point for the amount and placement of the weight did achieve the expected effect. In the pre-trials, the sheets descent was judged to be slower than what hoped. After some deliberation, however, it was decided that this might not be detrimental to performance because salmon were likely to be swimming at the top of the intermediate during slowdowns (based on our review of previous video of slowdowns during other EFP tests). As long as the descent of the flapper allowed access to the aft section of the escape portals on the top and sides, escapement could start to occur. The tradeoff here was that it was possible that testing additional amounts of weight on the sheet might take a great deal of time to perfect, especially if additional weight started to cause the sheet to remain somewhat open during regular towing. Attempting to perfect the amount of weight on the flapper might require too much time and EFP groundfish quota. We therefore opted to conduct the test with the sheet weighted at the initial approximation of the amount needed to achieve the balance between staying closed during regular towing and opening during slowdowns. For the test, the vessel captain was asked to slow the vessel to approximately two knots (speed over ground) for a period of ten minutes every two hours. This proved not to be as straightforward as one might imagine. Fishermen use net headrope sounders to gauge when a large amount of catch is entering the net. From this they have an expectation based on their years of experience with catch indicator devices in the codend, to know how long it takes for fish to pass back to the codend of the net. This is important because one would not want to conduct a slowdown and open the flap designed to prevent escapement during normal towing when large amounts of fish are congregated in the area of the flapper. To avoid slowdowns while a large mass of pollock was still passing by the excluder, we requested that the captain conduct slowdowns at approximately two hour intervals. The actual times of slowdowns were noted. At the end of the test the actual average duration between slowdowns ended up being 2 hours 25 minutes. This is clearly a situation where the normal scientific protocol for standardizing methods had to be adjusted to be workable for our applied research. For our initial test of the flapper excluder and underwater video observations, we estimated that 10 minute slowdowns would be sufficient to allow salmon to escape. Shorter slowdowns were adequate for salmon escapement in earlier tests of funnel excluders rigged with weight to allow them to collapse during slowdowns. But with the relatively slow pace of the descent of the sheet of webbing used with the flapper excluder, 10 minutes seemed to be about the right duration. It was therefore decided that 10-minute slowdowns would be the standard throughout the trials. Because fishing rates were fairly good during our test, most tows required only one slowdown. This was because the codend was sufficiently full at or before the two hour guidepost period for slowdowns. This meant that for most tows, the slowdown was conducted in conjunction with the crews removal of the headrope sounder. Removal of the sounder normally takes less than

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ten minutes, but the vessel captain simply continued the slowdown for the additional time needed to meet the 10 minute requirement. Performance estimated in the test of the flapper excluder: In our March 2007 tests of the flapper excluder, the device achieved an average Chinook escapement rate of 19%, notably lower than what was achieved with the funnel excluders. It should be noted that this was the first and, to date, only test of a flapper design. So at this early point in research on flapper excluders, we do not know how or if adjustments to the weighting or location of the flapper would affect escapement rates. Particularly noteworthy is that problems with pinning pollock and loss of door spread and bulges were not observed during our test of the flapper excluder. In fact, pollock escapement rates averaged 0.6% during this test. For most tows, the pollock escapement rate was close to zero. A few tows with higher escapement resulted in overall average of approximately one-half of a percent. Slowdowns for the tows with higher pollock escapement may have occurred while a larger amount of pollock was still passing through the net. Fig. 7.
Chinook escapement rates for sqaure mesh flapper over the course of winter 2007 EFP 45.0% 40.0% 35.0% 30.0% 25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0%
53 58 49 67 69 71 73 75 77 79

chinook escape %

chinook escape % Linear (chinook escape %)

haul number

Looking beyond the average Chinook escapement rate, Figure 7 shows that escapement rates for Chinook were in the vicinity of 30% to 40% for some tows. It therefore appears that the flapper has the potential to achieve rates in the range of what we measured with other excluders. On tows directly following tows with good salmon escapement rates, escapement rates were sometimes close to or at zero. Of considerable interest here is to achieve an understanding of the factors affecting escapement rates for the flapper device. The most basic question is whether the flapper panel actually descended on the tows where escapement was close to nothing. Unfortunately, our ability to get video or sonar observations during the actual flapper excluder test was hampered by equipment failures and the low relative amount of daylight at that time of year. So we can only hypothesize

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about the factors affecting tow by tow escapement rates at this point. The towing direction relative to the tide may influence salmon escapement rates with the flapper. The amount of weight placed on the flapper panel or its location relative to the codend could also affect salmon and pollock escapement rates. All these are relevant avenues of inquiry, but with only one field test of a flapper excluder in a single location with a default intuitive amount of weight, at this point we simply do not have any way of knowing the direction of change in the salmon escapement rate for modifications to the device or its location in the net. Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of our preliminary testing of the flapper is that the device appears to avoid the bulge problem completely. The problem with bulging of the net has proven to be extremely difficult to resolve. Our initial trial of the flapper excluder suggests that it performs as designed in terms of having no discernible effect on door spread and the shape or performance of the net while fishing (with limited ability to evaluate net shape due to sonar and camera equipment failures). Results of paired comparison tests in the fall of 2005 In the fall of 2005, we attempted to evaluate the performance of a funnel excluder equipped with a special buffer strip designed to help avoid bulges. A catcher processor pollock vessel was used for these trials. The experimental design required a relatively large amount of fishing effort to encounter enough salmon bycatch to resolve the ambient variability. The test vessel rotated between tows with otherwise identical nets (same make and model but with different amounts of wear) and the only difference as per the experimental design was the presence of the excluder. Figure 8 shows the results obtained from these paired tow comparisons. The two metrics of the effect of the device on salmon catch rates are the salmon catch per hour and the salmon catch per ton of pollock. Note that the mean estimated effect of the excluder on Chinook and chum catch per hour appears to be in the correct direction, but the magnitudes of reduction were lower than those measured in our trials with a recapture net. The mean salmon catch per ton of pollock for Chinook and chum are in fact in the opposite direction from our expectation and hence suggest problems with the experimental design because the excluder cannot increase salmon bycatch rates. Finally, the pollock escapement rate is much higher than anything experienced in our trials with recapture nets. Overall, confidence intervals estimated for these effects are very large and therefore the actual effects of the excluders are anywhere in a rather broad range of positive or negative effects. Overall, this suggests that either the effect of the excluder was very small or that the test was essentially unable to overcome the amount of ambient or other sources of variance (from sources that were not adequately accounted for in the experimental design). By way of possible explanation for this experimental outcome, the fishing conditions we encountered in the fall of 2005 were in fact highly variable. The captain operating the vessel noted that fish schools were moving so rapidly that when the vessel attempted to make the second tow of a pair, the pollock school in which the first tow was made had in most cases moved off. The vessel captain thus faced the prospect of making a tow where there was clearly no fishable concentration of pollock (an unpopular idea) or to go to a new area in hope of finding the school again. There was obviously no way of knowing where the school had gone or whether the salmon that were with the pollock had moved on with the pollock. Overall, with

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the fishing conditions encountered, the attempt to detect the effect of the excluder on the catch per hour of towing or per ton of pollock may have been inherently unlikely. It is also possible that the effect of the excluder was in fact smaller than anticipated (or even nonexistent). In the case where the effect of the device was actually smaller than our expectation in the statistical power analysis (where we assumed escapement rates based on our trials with recapture nets), we may not have had sufficient statistical power to detect the effect. Finally, it is possible that our assumption that the nets were identical in terms of how they fished may not have been sound. Nets with different degrees of wear may fish differently. If the nets were not sufficiently standardized, this could have obscured the effects of the excluder.
Fig. 8. Paired comparison results from 2005 C/P funnel excluder trials.

Conclusion: Our research results to date on the ever-evolving salmon excluder device are very promising. But the task of fashioning an effective salmon bycatch reduction device that works in a fishery with very high catch rates for the target species and that functions solely from behavioral differences between two species of finfish is clearly more difficult than we understood at the outset. So more design work and experimentation are clearly needed before a workable excluder is arrived at. Future research efforts should continue to use recapture nets instead of paired comparisons and should at first concentrate on perfecting the flapper device. We believe at this point anyway that the flapper is the most promising design and least problematic for regular use in the pollock fishery. The next steps to increase salmon escapement rates with the flapper excluder should be basic adjustments to the factors that are likely to affect salmon escapement performance. These are different amounts of weight added to the flapper, different durations in slowdowns, or alternative locations with respect to the cod end. If these adjustments are not successful in boosting salmon escapement rates with the flapper, then more radical modifications to the flapper merit

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consideration. One such idea might be a flapper excluder with sufficient weight added to the sheet covering the escapement portals such that it would remain partially open (just enough to allow salmon to escape) during regular towing speeds. Such a device could still be designed to allow salmon to escape during slowdowns but the additional factor of remaining partially open during fishing might allow additional salmon escapement overall and could reduce the need for as many periodic slowdowns of the vessel. If a flapper excluder that remains partially open during fishing is designed and tested in the future, a key question would be to see how it performs relative to what we know about the weighted funnel excluders that allow escapement during slowdowns. Both approaches would then be designed around escapement during towing at regular speeds as well as during slowdowns. But the flapper that remains partially open might hold some promise in terms of possibly being less susceptible to bulges in the net because it would not have the same fasttapering square mesh components. Acknowledgements: The principal investigator and pollock industry coordinator want to thank Dr. Rose for all his assistance at all stages of the work done under EFP 05-02. Absent Dr. Roses help, we would not have been able to accomplish the progress made in this EFP, nor in the 2003-2004 EFP. Dr. Roses tireless dedication to providing technical assistance and encouragement to the Alaskas fishing industrys work on conservation engineering is without equal. The authors also want to acknowledge the work of Ms. Melanie Brown in the NMFS Alaska Regional office who has repeatedly gone the extra mile to make sure we had the proper Environmental Assessments required for the EFPs in time for the different stages of our field work. We likewise thank Katy McGauley who assisted with (early stages) and carried out (final stages) the field management of our experiments under this EFP. We also wish to thank all the captains and crew members (too numerous to list) and gear manufacturers who have assisted us during the EFP testing in addition to conducting informal trials in the regular pollock fishery. Without their work, what we have accomplished could not have been done. Finally, the principal investigator wishes to thank John Gruver. In addition to serving as pollock industry coordinator for the EFP, Mr. Gruver has gratefully undertaken all the design work on the tunnel, funnel, and flapper excluder devices. His commitment to this project has brought us a long way towards an effective salmon excluder and his hard work is greatly appreciated.

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