Diamondback Terrapin Mortality in the American Eel Pot Fishery and Evaluation of a Bycatch Reduction Device

The effect of commercial fisheries on nontarget species is a burgeoning issue for both fishery managers and estuarine biologists. We documented diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) bycatch in cloth-funnel eel pots used in a Maryland (United States) commercial American eel (Anguilla rostrata) fishery. Between 1992 and 2001, we obtained 40 male and 9 female terrapin captures and 1 male terrapin recapture from commercial eel pots. To quantify terrapin catch rates and evaluate a potential solution to terrapin bycatch in eel pots, we conducted two experiments that tested the effects of a novel eel pot bycatch reduction device on terrapin bycatch and eel harvest. We determined low terrapin bycatch rates (0.000-0.008 terrapins pot-1d-1) in pots with small entrance funnels and high terrapin capture rates (0.458 terrapins pot-1d-1) in pots with large entrance funnels. The BRD eliminated terrapin bycatch and had no effect on eel catch making it an economically-viable solution for terrapin mortality in eel pots. We demonstrated that terrapin bycatch can be a problem in the American eel pot fishery and that our bycatch reduction device is a simple and cost-effective solution to this problem.