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Title Square mesh codends for selective trawling: A case study along Sindhudurg District, Maharashtra
 
Names Madhu, V.R.
Paresh, S.K.
Edwin, L.
Fernandes, M.
Ghosh, S.
Vasudevan, N.
Date Issued 2017 (iso8601)
Abstract Tropical trawling fi sheries are often implicated with
the generation of large quantities of by-catch. The
Sindhudurg coast of Maharashtra is an important trawl
landing centre along the West coast and about 317
trawlers operate from three major landing centres of
this region. Square mesh codends are widely tested
and recommended as effective gear based on technical
measure for the reduction of by-catch, often constituted
by juveniles of commercially important species, and
affecting the fi shery.
This paper reports the results of a study conducted
along the Sindhudurg coast using square and diamond
mesh codends of 30 mm size and 1.25 mm thickness.
A total of 38 hauls using diamond mesh and 44 using
square mesh codends were used for the analysis. The
mean CPUE – Catch Per Unit Effort, (kg.h.-1) for
diamond mesh (18.77) and square mesh codend (19.48)
fi tted trawls, were not signifi cantly different (Kruskal-
Wallis chi-squared = 0.058711, df = 1, p-value = 0.81).
The increase in the mean length of 12 out of the 15
commercially important species studied increased by
7.85%. The rate of escape was 0.76 kg per hour, from
the square mesh codends, which is 3.9% of the total
catch (2,142.4 kg) retained and valued at INR 28.5 per
haul. By-catch generated per haul, was signifi cantly
higher during the months of December (43.5±9.3 SD)
and January (56.3±17.1 SD) and the by-catch during
months of September, October and November were
less than 20.0 kg/haul.
The study concludes that installation of square mesh
codends did not affect the performance of the gear. The
selection properties of the trawl net improved and no
signifi cant loss was incurred due to the use of square
mesh codends. Though, mesh size optimization for multiple species in the codend and the modelling for
the future value of the escapees were not worked out,
based on the analysis carried out, it is recommended
that traditional diamond mesh codends can be replaced
with square mesh codends, as an easy and inexpensive
technical measure for management of trawl fi sheries
along the Sindhudurg coast.
Genre Article
Access Condition This paper is for R & D purpose and Copyright [2018] Ela Foundation
Identifier Ela Journal of Forestry and Wildlife 6(1):301-307