NIFS announced that there was no finless porpoise bycatch found in the results of installing the finless porpoise escape device (bycatch reduction device) on coastal improved stow net fishing vessels in the sea areas of Chungcheong namdo, where frequent emergence of finless porpoise occurs. 

Speaking of finless porpoise, it is endangered species, which MOF designated as protected marine species in 2016 and has protected since then. It is a small phocoenidae cetacean inhabiting in the eastern coast of Asia, including Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, etc. In Korea, the southern coast of the East Sea and the entire coast of the West and South Sea are the habitats. 

The device, consisting of guide net and escape hole, was designed to make finless porpoise escape the fishing net without damaging fishing. The guide net functions to attract finless porpoise entering into the net to the escape hole.

For about two years and nine months (April 2021∼December 2023), the West Sea Fisheries Research Institute of NIFS attached the device to some of fishing nets on 30 stow net fishing vessels in Seocheon－gun and Boryeong city of Chungcheong namdo, and monitored the fishing operation around 16,000 times. 

The monitoring results showed that there was no finless porpoise bycatch in the nets with the device attached, but 52 were bycaught in other nets. 

For 11 years (2012~2022) in Korea, around 1,100 finless porpoises on average were dead due to bycatch and other reasons, but it was counted that around 70% (760) of them resulted from bycatch in the nets of stow net fishing vessels. Therefore, it is projected to significantly reduce the mortality of finless porpoise by expanding the attachment of the escape device to the fishing vessels.