The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has announced grants totaling nearly $1.6 million through its Fisheries Innovation Fund.

Representing the third round of awards made through the fund, the grants will aid in the design and implementation of fifteen projects that aim to provide technical and practical support for fishing communities across the country. The fund, which requires grant recipients to secure matching funds, is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Walton Family and Gordon and Betty Moore foundations.

Grant recipients include Ecotrust, which was awarded roughly $169,000 to develop, test, and implement an electronic trip ticket mobile application prototype to support collaborative fishing efforts, better track and manage fisheries data, and provide information that can aid harvest management decisions; Mote Marine Laboratory, which will receive $150,000 to establish a center that will work to scale up electronic monitoring and improve collection of accurate catch-and-release data from the commercial Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery; and the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, which was awarded $55,000 for a collaborative, industry-driven conservation initiative to reduce mortality of discarded halibut in the Alaska sport fishing sector.

"In the first two rounds of the Fisheries Innovation Fund, we invested in innovative ideas to help communities maximize limited fisheries resources, minimize bycatch, and explore new monitoring technologies," said NFWF executive director and CEO Jeff Trandahl. "With our new grants, we will expand these approaches to additional areas, and focus on promoting community-supported fisheries to sustain working waterfronts."