Fisheries Science Partnership Programme 9, carried out in December 2003. The
Programme was set up to investigate the extent to which a sieve net,
incorporated into an industrial fishing trawl, could reduce the by-catch of
whitefish whilst retaining sufficient catches of the target species Norway
pout (Trisopterus esmarkii) in the northern North Sea. Sieve nets (also
known as veil nets) are curved cone-shaped funnels of netting traditionally
fitted to the inside of beam trawls used for brown shrimps, to reduce the
by-catch of unwanted fish.
