Publication Name

Rare Planet

Tim McClanahan and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson of the Wildlife Conservation Society have won the Solution Search: Turning the Tide for Coastal Fisheries award. Solution Search was designed to help bring recognition to innovative community-based conservation projects. Through online voting, the public voted for their top three solutions. The Wildlife Conservation Society won the grand prize with its solution, “Bycatch Escape Gaps for Fish Traps” in Curaçao and Kenya. It received a US$20,000 prize to support its conservation and resource management initiative.

A summary of the project follows: The majority of reef fish captured globally are caught in fish traps. Although traps target high-value fish such as groupers and snappers, any fish that enters but cannot escape through the mesh is retained. This results in high bycatch of juveniles, ornamental species, and ecologically important herbivores, and leads to overexploitation. However, studies in Curaçao and Kenya demonstrate that traps retrofitted with vertical, rectangular escape gaps allow narrow-bodied, compressible, and juvenile fish to escape, reducing bycatch up to 80 percent, without reducing (and potentially increasing) catch value. Escape gaps are a low-cost, low-tech solution to increase fishery selectivity and sustainability. Thus, the Wildlife Conservation Society works with fishing communities to incorporate gaps as part of ongoing adaptive management.

Learn more by visiting the Rare Planet website.