Indian turtle excluder device will reverse losses from ban on seafood export to US

The United States is India’s biggest overseas seafood market, with an export revenue share of 34.53% – in USD. In the last five years, however, India suffered a loss of $500 million after the US ban on its export of wild-caught shrimp, as reported by the Marine Products Export Development Authority.

The ban was imposed in 2019 on the grounds that Indian trawler vessels were not using Turtle Excluder Devices and that the devices in use did not meet the US National Marine Fisheries Service standards.

A Turtle Excluder Device is a simple grid of deflector bars installed before the cod end (narrow end) of a trawl net at an angle leading upward or downward into an escape opening. Small animals such as shrimp will slip through the bar spacing and are retained in the net, while large fish and mammals are prevented entry, allowing them to escape through the opening. This also allows air-breathing marine turtles to avoid capture and subsequent death from prolonged entrapment in the trawl net.

Under Section 609 of the US public law, wild-caught shrimp or products from wild-caught shrimp harvested with commercial fishing technology that may adversely affect protected sea turtle species may not be imported into the US.

Wild-caught shrimp fetches double the price in international markets, and hence,…

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