Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) are recognized internationally as a convenient and effective measure for protecting sea turtles from trawling-related mortality. An indigenous design of TED was developed at Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, after extensive field trials off southwest coast and east coast, with focus on reducing catch losses, which is a cause of concern for trawler fishermen in adopting the device.
Field trials with CIFT-TED, so far, has shown a mean catch loss in the range of 0.52-0.97% for shrimp and 2.44-3.27% for non-shrimp resources, which is considerably less than the loss incurred during the operations with imported TED designs. The loss of finfish catch is expected to vary from zone to zone and from season to season, depending on the percentage representation of large fin fishes and elasmobranchs in the trawl catch. However, the large species that are excluded due to installation of TED are not lost to the fishery as a whole, as they can be caught by other fishing techniques in vogue in the fishing area.