Many experts believed that turtle excluder devices, also known as TEDs, are a very good way to protect engendered turtles, and that they should be a vital part of the equipment on any shrimp boat. Here are their responses to the criticisms that you just read about. First, it's true that catching a turtle is a rare thing for any one boat; however, there are, for example, thousands of shrimp boats operating off the southern coast of the United States. Collectively these shrimpers accidentally catch thousands of turtles every year. And these are endangered sea turtles whose population is already too small, so harming several thousand every year is a big problem. So when considering the impact of TEDs, don't think in terms of an individual shrimper losing a few shrimp, but rather in terms of how the sea turtle population as a whole is effected by the shrimp industry as a whole.Second, implementing time limits to ensure that turtles are brought up in air in time, that sounds like a good idea, but only in theory. The problem is that the time limits are almost impossible to enforce. There are thousands of shrimp boats far out the sea, and government patrol boats cannot nearly monitor the time limits all these boats use. The use of TEDs is easier to enforce. All that required is checking the shrimp boats before they leave port and making sure their nets have TEDs.Third, it’s true that TEDs can be too small for some very large species of turtle, but in the area where they are needed, it's not a problem to create TEDs that are somewhat larger. The design of TED can be modified easily without affecting the way that it functions. So once large TEDs begin to be produced, this will no longer be a problem.
