A major research project looking at ways to minimise the environmental impacts of school prawn trawling without impacting on yields is now underway on the Clarence River, Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said today.

Minister Macdonald said researchers last week began examining whether replacing otter boards with beam trawls could maintain targeted catches in the Clarence River, while reducing fuel consumption and unwanted catch.

"This project has been established in response to an idea from local fisher, Steve Everson," Minister Macdonald said.

"Otter trawling in NSW involves dragging large angled ‘otter’ boards attached to each side of a trawl net to hold it open.

"Instead of otter boards, beam trawls use a rigid metal bar and parallel sleds or rollers attached to the net to maintain the required opening.

"Different designs of beam trawls are successfully used in a number of small-scale fisheries around the world.

"Beam trawls require less force to tow than otter trawls, which should result in lower fuel costs.

"Bycatch reduction devices already introduced in NSW allow large quantities of unwanted fish to escape after they enter the trawls.

"The aim now is to see whether improvements to trawl design can be made to reduce the amount of fish that actually enter the nets.

"Otter boards contribute towards fish being herded into the path of a net, so by removing those in favour of a beam, there should be less bycatch.

"If otter boards can be replaced on Clarence River trawlers while maintaining targeted catches, a further benefit should be less impact on the river bottom because the sleds attached to the beam have a much smaller footprint than otter boards."

Otter prawn trawling takes place in three NSW rivers, involves about 200 small vessels of under ten metres in length and is valued at around $7 million annually.

Media contact: Jason Bartlett 0438 209 281