Bycatch—when animals are accidentally caught while people are fishing for other species—is the biggest threat to sea turtles in the ocean.
As part of our restoration activities for sea turtles, we are working to reduce bycatch in shrimp trawls. We have two new gear monitoring teams who are working closely with the fishermen to ensure that their turtle excluder devices are installed properly.
Turtle excluder devices were first developed in the 1960s to allow shrimp trawlers to effectively catch shrimp while allowing turtles and other large bycatch to escape the net.
