Evaluation of shark deterrents to reduce depredation and bycatch rates in Texas and Gulf recreational fisheries

Texas and Gulf commercial and recreational fisheries have reported increasing interactions with sharks, resulting in substantial depredation and fishing difficulty. Depredation involves partially or wholly removing captured fish or bait off the hook. This results in loss of catch and fishing gear, higher mortality for target species, and potential injury or mortality to the predators responsible. Consequently, depredation has been identified as an obstacle preventing commercial and recreational stakeholder buy‐in to shark conservation and management initiatives in the Gulf and has emerged as a complex yet understudied area of human-wildlife conflict.

From a stock assessment perspective, depredation represents an unquantified source of mortality in commercial and recreational fisheries that, if frequent, could have severe implications for successful species management and recovery of depleted stocks. Therefore, developing effective non-lethal shark depredation and bycatch mitigation strategies in commercial and recreational fisheries has become a pressing management need.

The specific objectives of the proposed study are to

1. Characterize the frequency of depredation and bycatch using commercial and recreational fishing gear;
2. Evaluate the efficacy of two different shark deterrents to reduce depredation and bycatch; and
3. Determine if shark deterrents affect target species catch rates.