The Trapdoor That Saves Sea Turtles From Shrimp Nets

Picture a shrimp trawl moving slowly along the bottom of a warm, shallow bay. Shrimp pour into the net. Then a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, the smallest and most endangered sea turtle on Earth, gets swept in with them. It hits a metal grid, slides down, gets pushed out through a flap in the net, and swims away. The shrimp stay in the bag and end up on deck.

That little trapdoor is called a turtle excluder device, or TED. It’s one of the greatest success stories in ocean conservation, and it just got a major legal win.

What bycatch is and why it matters

Bycatch is anything a fisher catches without meaning to. The animals conservation scientists worry about most are endangered, threatened, and protected species: sea turtles, sharks, seabirds like albatross, whales, and dolphins. They often feed on the same prey as the target fish, in the same water. The net or the line can’t tell them apart.

Mesh sizes help smaller animals escape, but large animals like sea turtles and dolphins get caught regardless. That’s where gear design comes in.

How a turtle excluder device works

Sea turtles breathe air. A turtle trapped in a shrimp net that’s dragged for an hour or more can drown. A TED is a metal grid sewn into the neck of the net with an escape flap. Small shrimp pass through the bars into the bag at the end. A turtle is too big, so it hits the grid, slides along it, and gets pushed out through the flap.

To be approved in the US, a TED design has to prove 97% effective at excluding sea turtles in testing, and shrimp catch changes very little.

For years, though, there was a gap. Smaller shrimp boats using skimmer trawls could skip TEDs if they limited how long each net stayed in the water. Observers found those tow-time limits were often ignored. In 2019, the US government finalized a rule requiring TEDs on skimmer trawl boats 40 feet and longer. The Louisiana Shrimp Association sued. In late August 2026, the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rule, finding the agency had given a rational, evidence-backed explanation based on federal observer data.

That matters because Louisiana’s inshore waters are prime feeding grounds for Kemp’s ridleys. Those turtles now have a trapdoor.

The pattern is worth noticing. A loophole for small boats looks harmless because each boat is small. Add up hundreds of them, especially when the rules aren’t followed, and you get a big problem.

Right whales and the rope problem

North Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered whales on the planet, with an estimated 384 alive in 2024. The 2026 calving season brought 23 calves, the most since 2009, which is genuine good news. The species still needs every one of them.

People often ask how a whale gets caught in a lobster trap. The danger is the rope. Every trap or string of traps has a vertical line running from the seafloor to a buoy at the surface. Off New England and Atlantic Canada, there are a huge number of those lines, in the same areas right whales feed. A whale swims into a line and it wraps around a flipper, the tail, or the mouth. Some drown. Others drag heavy gear for months while the rope cuts into them and the wounds get infected. Entanglement and vessel strikes are the two leading causes of death and serious injury for the species.

In 2022, Seafood Watch moved American lobster from the US and Canada to its red “avoid” list over right whale risk, and the Marine Stewardship Council suspended the Gulf of Maine lobster certification after a federal court found whale protections inadequate. Congress then paused new right whale rules for the lobster fishery through 2028. On September 1, 2026, the US House voted to extend that pause to 2035. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Lobster families face warmer water, shifting stocks, and rising costs. Their frustration is real. The whales still need a fix, and two options are on the table:

Weak rope is strong enough to haul traps and weak enough to snap when a 50-ton whale hits it. If a whale hits your line, you lose that gear either way. Weak rope means the whale survives too.

On-demand or ropeless gear leaves no line in the water. The trap waits on the bottom with a lift bag or spooled line. When the boat arrives, it sends an acoustic signal and the trap rises to the surface. Early versions were expensive and unreliable, and fishers understandably disliked a change to how they’ve worked for generations. A growing number of fishers in the US and Canada are now testing it, especially where closures have shut down fishing in right whale areas, and grants are helping cover the cost as the gear improves.

What dolphin-safe tuna actually means

In the eastern tropical Pacific, tuna often swim beneath dolphins. Starting in the late 1950s, fishers set huge purse seine nets around dolphin groups to catch the tuna below. Hundreds of thousands of dolphins died each year at the peak, and some populations collapsed.

The dolphin-safe label means the tuna was caught without setting nets on dolphins and with no dolphins killed or seriously injured in that set. That is the specific promise it makes. Reported dolphin deaths in that fishery have dropped from hundreds of thousands a year to roughly a thousand. The population picture is still mixed, and that is still one of the largest bycatch reductions on record.

Who’s counting?

Every number in this story depends on someone counting. If a boat counts its own bycatch, it has a built-in incentive to report less. That’s why independent fisheries observers matter.

Early in my career, I worked as a marine mammal observer on seismic survey vessels. I learned quickly that what happens on the back deck is only known if someone is there to see it.

Observer work is a great first job for young biologists and often one of the best-paying roles straight out of a marine biology degree. It can also be dangerous. The Association for Professional Observers has documented over a dozen observers who died on the job since 2009, many in Pacific tuna fisheries. These cases are rare in North America, so do your research before you take a posting elsewhere.

Electronic monitoring is growing fast: high-definition cameras on deck, with footage reviewed by analysts on shore. In many fisheries it costs less than a human observer, and the camera doesn’t need a bunk.

How to buy better seafood

Next time you buy tuna, look for pole-and-line, troll, or handline caught. In a pole-and-line fishery, the crew stands at the rail and catches tuna one at a time. It catches almost nothing except tuna. It’s usually printed on the can, and if it isn’t, the Seafood Watch app can point you to brands that use it.

Every fix in this story comes down to gear. When you choose the gear, you choose the bycatch.

Seafood and sea turtles can share the same water. Better nets make that possible, and we already have them.

Takeaways

• Bycatch is anything caught unintentionally; protected species like sea turtles, whales, dolphins, and seabirds are the biggest concern
• TEDs must prove 97% effective at excluding sea turtles in testing, with minimal shrimp loss
• A federal appeals court upheld the 2019 rule requiring TEDs on skimmer trawl boats 40 feet and longer
• Vertical rope from trap to buoy is the main entanglement threat to North Atlantic right whales
• Weak rope and ropeless gear are the two leading fixes, and more fishers are testing ropeless systems
• The US House voted on September 1, 2026, to extend the pause on new right whale lobster rules to 2035; the Senate has not yet acted
• Dolphin-safe tuna means no nets set on dolphins and none killed or seriously injured in that set
• Choose pole-and-line, troll, or handline tuna for the lowest bycatch
• Independent observers and electronic monitoring make bycatch numbers trustworthy