In NSW, commercial fishing for prawns occurs in estuaries and offshore and involves the use of small-meshed seines, stow nets and trawls. In addition to the targeted prawns, many of these fishing gears retain unwanted organisms, termed bycatch. At times, this bycatch consists of large numbers of small fish, cephalopods and crustaceans, including prawns smaller than the optimal commercial size.

The bycatch of unwanted fish has been addressed in some fisheries, via the use of physical modifications to the fishing gears (termed bycatch reduction devices - BRDs). These BRDs include the Nordmøre-grid (used in estuarine trawls) and the composite square-mesh panel (used in offshore trawls). The unwanted bycatch of small prawns (considered too small for sale) is another problem in many fisheries and is being addressed via simple modifications to the shape of the meshes used in nets. More specifically, square-shaped mesh has been shown to be very effective in reducing the numbers of small prawns and other similar-sized bycatch.

This poster provides a visual summary of the results from some of the work done by NSW Fisheries (over the past 10 years) to reduce unwanted bycatches from commercial prawn fisheries.