TPO 37 Integrated writing

Sea turtle species have been under threat of extinction and use of nets by commercial shrimp fishing boats have accelerated this process. While the passage holds the opinion that the use of TEDs is not sufficient to prevent this phenomena, the lecture cast some doubts on the claims made by the author.

To begin with, the passage asserts that the number of turtles caught by each fishing boat is rather low and using TEDs will cost the shrimpers some of their catch. However, the speaker opposes this assertion by demonstrating that although the estimations show that there exists a low chance for turtles to be caught in the net, when thousands of boats go fishing the loss of overall amount of these species decrease significantly. Specially considering the fact that they are in danger of extinction. The lecturer continues to mention that the fishers only loose a low percentage of their catch which is not considered a proper reason not to use TEDs.

Furthermore, another method was suggested by the passage which was to shorten time limit for keeping nets underwater. The lecture disputes this statement by claiming that because fishers are located far in the sea, the government is unable to enforce this method. On the other hand, the use of TEDs can be ensured by checking each fisher boat.

Lastly, the passage claims that TEDs are not effective for larger turtle species which are also endangered because they cannot fit through the escape. The speaker however, refutes this claim suggesting that designing TEDs with larger escape space is not hard and it will not have an enormous effect on the number of caught shrimps.