Effects of live-bait shrimp trawling on seagrass beds and fish bycatch in Tampa Bay, Florida

The use of live shrimp for bait inrecreational fishing has resulted ina controversial fishery for shrimp inFlorida. In this fishery, night collectionsare conducted over seagrassbeds with roller beam trawls to capturelive shrimp, primarily pinkshrimp, Penaeus duorarum. Theseshrimp are culled from the catch onsorting tables and placed in onboardaerated “live” wells. Beds ofturtlegrass, Thalassia testudinum,a species that has highest growthrates and biomass during summerand lowest during the winter (Fonsecaet al., 1996) are predominantareas for live-bait shrimp trawling(Tabb and Kenny, 1969). Our study objectives were 1) todetermine effects of a roller beamtrawl on turtlegrass biomass andmorphometrics during intensive(up to 18 trawls over a turtlegrassbed), short-term (3-hour duration)use and 2) to examine the mortalityof bycatch finfish following captureby a trawl.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Meyer, David L., Fonseca, Mark S., Murphey, Patricia L., McMichael, Robert H., Jr., LaCroix, Michael W., Whitfield, Paula E., Thayer, Gordon W.
Format:	article biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	1999
Subjects:	Fisheries, Environment, Pink shrimp, Penaeus duorarum, turtlegrass, Thalassia testudinum, Florida, fisheries, ecology,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/1834/18338
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