Smelts Sea Mammal Education Learning Training Society

“Ann marie riels and richard riels are married.”

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“This year (2019), smelts worked with commercial fishermen on the design needs for their industry. Using this information, smelts has built 9 sets of successfully tested working lift bag fishing technology. Smelts has built collaborations with scientists, educators, fisherman, vendors, government officials, and other ngo's. Marine scientists from around the globe have documented that the line and buoy system in pot/trap fisheries has caused injury and death from negative human interaction. Death and sub-lethal injuries have reduced reproductive capability in marine mammals due to the negative effect from entanglement. There are many marine animals that are listed under the marine mammal protection act (mmpa) and endangered species act (esa) that smelts has prioritized in order to develop a solution to protect such creatures from injury. Smelts' line-less lift bag technology removes the need for vertical lines and buoys needed to haul bottom set trap/pot fisheries which is the current system for bottom-set fishing. Large cetacean entanglements have threatened closures for commercial bottom-set fishing. Smelts has had great interest and support for its line-less lift bag technology from the island foundation, sr 3, noaa, pew charitable trust, national fish and wildlife foundation, division of marine fisheries massachusetts, california department of fish and wildlife, pacific mammal research, marine-med, blue planet strategies, stellwagen bank national marine sanctuary, woods hole oceanographic institution, and northeast fisheries science center. Smelts has 2 volunteers on its board -- cindy elliser phd. Of pacific mammal research organization and stephanie norman dvm, ms, phd of marine med organization. Smelts understands the importance of "all hands-on deck" to work on a solution for the issue of marine mammal entanglement and the future options available to commercial bottom-set fishing. Smelts has partnered with u.s. Vendors to provide american commerce easy access to parts and equipment needed to produce innovative line-less lift bag fishing systems. Smelts set up formal purchasing accounts with these vendors and had success in finding all parts and equipment needed to make its systems. In the process of development and testing, smelts has found that its line-less technology has capability for many applications in shallow to deep waters by simple adjustments of its component configurations. To date, smelts has developed and tested 3 different acoustic systems with the fourth in development. Smelts uses video, pictures and written documentation to capture data on all testing. Bench and ocean testing are documented from our lab, research vessel and with our commercial fishing partners vessels. Smelts' current design was fished commercially by a massachusetts commercial fisherman from october 2019 to january 2020, catching line-less lobster that was brought to market fishing under a letter of authorization (loa) given to smelts by the commonwealth of massachusetts division of marine fisheries. These fishing trials followed a strict set of protocols developed by nefsc. Smelts' technology was also tested to retrieve abandoned, lost, derelict fishing gear with success. As part of smelts' education program, smelts continues presenting our work and findings at many public forums and meetings and educating on these issues. Smelts presented at the teledyne technology conference in september 2019 in san diego, california, demonstrating the capabilities to line-less lift bag systems and the many applications it can be used for. Smelts presented with a poster and gear demonstration at the 2019 ropeless consortium meeting and the 2019 north atlantic right whale consortium meeting in portland, maine. Smelts also presented at the world marine mammalogy conference in barcelona, spain on the issue of entanglement to the north atlantic right whale in commercial fisheries and our work toward a solution. Smelts shares development and findings of”