Trawling for Species

Hopper dredging along the southeastern United States has been known to result in incidental take of sea turtles and sturgeon through entrainment. In order to reduce the risk of take of these species the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and dredging industry worked to develop methods to reduce the density of these animals in the project area to reduce the likelihood of take. Modified shrimp trawling equipment is used to sweep the sea floor to either startle ESA-listed species out of the area, with open net relocation trawling, or to capture and often relocate these species, through the use of closed net relocation trawling. This management technique was originally initiated in the early 1980s at Canaveral Harbor, Florida and has continued to be used as a take minimization measure for dredging in the southeast.