NOAA grant to CSUMB professor could change the face of fishing around the world.

Trawling is not typically thought of as sustainable – it involves dragging a net across the seafloor, often denuding it of life – but that thinking might soon change.

Riding on recent technological innovation and the promise of federal funding, a study is set to take place locally that could soon land trawl-caught fish on the Seafood Watch “Best Choice” list.

The project is a collaborative effort between CSU Monterey Bay Marine Science and Policy Professor James Lindholm; the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary; the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF); and local fishermen – and hinges on over $300,000 of grant money the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recommended be awarded to Lindholm in March.

Lindholm’s study aims to compare the ecological impacts of traditional trawl gear to newly modified gear acquired by EDF, which EDF fisheries consultant Huff McGonigal says reduces contact with the seafloor by 90 percent: “Trawling has radically improved over last 10 years in terms of management.”

That’s where Lindholm comes in. “I think intuitively people think [the new gear] will have less impact,” Lindholm says. “We’d like to prove it.”

If the grant is awarded, as is expected to happen in the coming weeks, the team will set out to map sections of the local seafloor on the Fulmar, a sanctuary research vessel being donated for the study. The team will record seafloor imagery with a remotely operated vehicle in August. Once the pre-trawl seascape is established, local fishermen will trawl one area with modified trawl gear and another with traditional. The remotely operated vehicle would return in September to collect more imagery, which would Lindholm and his teams will take a few months to analyze. “We hope to quantify the difference between two,” Lindholm says. “That will inform managers.”

Sanctuary Resource Protection Coordinator Diane Grimmer says some sanctuary waters closed to trawling for years might opened back up if the new gear is successful.

If EDF’s gear proves to be as low-impact as McGonigal hopes, he says the benefits will be more than just ecological. “It increases the sustainability profile of trawl-caught fish. That’s a good thing from a fisherman’s perspective,” he says.

In addition to the new hardware EDF is bringing in, McGonigal says they will be employing advanced electronic equipment that allow fishermen to apply the gear, know exactly where it is and know how lightly it’s touching the seafloor.