Five years after the US imposed a ban on importing wild-caught shrimps from India, the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) and ICAR – Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (ICAR-CIFT) have designed and fabricated an indigenous Turtle Excluder Device (TED) to suit the trawlers’ fishing nets. The US ban, which was imposed citing the non-fixing of TEDs on trawler vessels, had significantly affected the country’s forex trading (Rs 4,500 crore) annually.
As per the Marine Fishing Regulation Acts (MFRAs) in the maritime states of India, the usage of TED has been insisted for fishing nets of mechanised trawler vessels in order to allow bycatch sea turtles to escape. However, Indian fishermen predominantly avoided fitting TEDs citing enormous loss of catch, which eventually led to the ban. It may be noted that bottom trawlers mainly catch shrimps found in the seabed, and sea turtles, an endangered species, are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
The US officials, during their inspections in 2018 and 2019, which were conducted on behalf of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), had confirmed that the Indian fishermen did not attach TED on their fishing nets. Following this, the US imposed the ban on export of Indian wild-caught shrimps to the country on the grounds that the TED did not meet the NMFS-US dimensions, and were not being fixed in mechanical trawlers.
Subsequently, the shrimp exports plummeted from 1 billion USD in 2017-18 to 454 million USD in 2022-23. The ban also reduced the unit export value of wild-caught shrimps to 5.68/kg from 9.87/kg, which also resulted in depriving the livelihood of a large chunk of fishermen. It is worth noting that India is a leading exporter of shrimp, while the US market remains a top importer of the species.
According to a senior MPEDA official, shrimps form a major part of the seafood export. Amongst the species, while farmed Vannamei shrimps are exported in large quantities, wild-caught shrimps fetch an ample amount of forex as it draws double the price owing to its high demand in the US. As a result, a ban on the sea-caught shrimps directly affected the fishermen too, the official said.
As per the annual report of 2018-19, US was the largest market for shrimps and imported with 2,58,551 tonnes of frozen shrimps during the period ahead of the ban. However, the annual report 2020-21 revealed that the export of Black Tiger Shrimp, a wild-caught shrimp, to the US dropped by 70.96%, 63.33% and 65.24% in terms of quantity, rupee value and USD terms, respectively.
“The TED designed by CIFT scientists is made out of an aluminium alloy pipe of 6082 T6 grade. Two different TED grids measuring a dimension of 48″ x 41″ for trawl nets with head rope greater than 30 m length, and 40″ x 36″ grid TED for the trawl nets with head rope less than 30 m in length were fabricated,” said an official wishing anonymity.
The advantage of the aluminium alloy TED is that it weighs less compared to the previous TED grid made of stainless steel. Moreover, this one will aid in containing the loss of catch as well, said Vinoth Ravindran, MPEDA, during an awareness programme organised for the Vembar fishermen. “We are creating awareness among the fishers to mandatorily fit TED on their trawl nets to conserve turtles, and popularise the advantages of indigenous TEDs,” he added.
Further, CIFT, Fishing technology / Head of division Dr MP Remesan told TNIE that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had accepted the design of the TED fabricated by CIFT. It has been tested both in the US and Indian waters, and trialled in commercial vessels in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. “Once this TED gets implemented in all the maritime states in a full-fledged manner, the US may lift the ban,” he added.