The effect of type of net on reducing bycatch
B. Introduction/Purpose “ Demand for seafood and advances in technology have led to fishing practices that are depleting fish and shellfish population around the world. Fishers remove more than 77 billion kilograms (170 billion pounds) of wildlife from the sea each year”( National Geographic 2015). The depletion of fish across the globe could lead to many economic and environmental issues if the amount of bycatch is not reduced significantly. When non-target species of fish are accidentally caught they are referred to as bycatch.
“Beyond the pressure on marine species, bycatch represents a monstrous waste of food, for both humans and marine predators” (Slow Food 2015). In the experiment …show more content…
D. Materials & Procedures
Materials
8 oz. paper cup tape scissors ocean/bucket test bucket dried garbanzo beans = shrimp red beans = squid white beans = herring marbles = tuna ping pong balls = dolphins
Procedures
We got an 8 oz. paper cup covered it in tape. We cut a small hole in the top so that dolphins (ping pong balls) could not get in.
I then cut a even smaller hole in the bottom of the cup so the tunas(marbles) could not get out but the other fish could fall out.
I tested it several time to see how it worked and it tested the best out of the 3 models.
In a three trial test we used the teacher assembled “ocean” ( a medium sized bucket with all the “fish” in it) as our final.
I scooped the fish into our net, then I would shake it ten time and then count the fish caught in net and record it. We repeated this twice and recorded the date each time on a chart.
Experimental Design Components
Independent Variable: Type of net
Dependent Variable: % tuna or % bycatch
Constants: number of fish in sea, types of fish in the sea, the size of each fish and the size of the