Sex As Bait????????,,ya gotta be kiddin

[choppa]

this is genuine,,,,,truly,,,

FRDC report 2000/256

""""""Could some of the 20 sex specific compounds in the urine of the australian female penaeid prawn lead to the development of a pheromone bait that would allow trawls to be replaced by pots or traps????

This project has established that prawns have a well developed sense of smell, and that males at sexual maturity develop a smelling ability several times better than females,,,and devote much bigger areas of their brain to processing incoming information

Early days says Principal Investigator Mike Hall of the Australian Institue of Marine Science, but these male abilities suggest females use reproductive phermones to attract mates..........................""""""

now,,, if you had some in a spray bottle,,, and sprayed it over your leg,,,,and stood in the water,,,,would that put the family dog outta of job,,,,,,,

i dont know whats funnier,,, some bloke studying this ,,,, or the FRDC using our $ to investigate it further

choppa

[straddie]

Heya Choppa

I don't know anything about a prawns reproductive or life cycle which could require equal numbers of male/female for successful breeding but if it could be done and breeding was unaffected why not.

With some of the weird and wacky stuff that gets funding from various governments I think I would consider funding research on that than many of the the other things. Might sound a little pie in the sky but if was to work it would be brilliant from a number of aspects.

For starters traps rather trawler nets could only be a good thing.
Trawler boys could convert rather than be bought out as they would still know the migration paths on which to lay the traps. No bycatch. No sorting required.
It would only target males and possibly leave a larger number of females to breed hopefully leading to more prawns. Being sexually mature males I would assume there would be relative uniformity in size caught.
The pheromone/ combination could be patented maybe bringing in some dollars leasing the technology or selling the final product.
If there are more prawns there should be a knock on effect for some fish species with more food availability.

Could just end up money down the drain but at least there is a potential upside if it was feasible.