Recent studies showed that regional abundance of loggerhead and leatherback turtles could oscillate interannually according to oceanographic and climatic conditions. The Western Mediterranean is an important fishing area for the Spanish drifting longline fleet, which mainly targets swordfish, bluefin tuna, and albacore. Due to the spatial overlapping in fishing activity and turtle distribution,...

The aim of this paper is to describe the dolphinfish bycatch rates in the longline fisheries of the Western Mediterranean and modelling the nominal bycatch abundance and distribution of dolphinfish from the Spanish Mediterranean as a function of technical, geographical, and seasonality factors. Our results indicate that the impact of the pelagic and semipelagic longline on the dolphinfish popul...

Sperm whales have learned to depredate black cod (Anoplopoma fimbria) from longline deployments in the Gulf of Alaska. On May 31, 2006, simultaneous acoustic and visual recordings were made of a depredation attempt by a sperm whale at 108 m depth. Because the whale was oriented perpendicularly to the camera as it contacted the longline at a known distance from the camera, the distance from the ...

Alaska fisheries are traditionally and economically important and, in 1992, fisheries subject to bycatch monitoring were valued at US$1.538 billion. Bycatch is the major seabird mortality factor and a serious conservation concern. Estimated average incidental mortality (1989-93) in selected fisheries was ca 11,200 birds annually. About 88% of the bycatch was in longline fisheries. Northern Fulm...

1 Developing a bioeconomic model for WCPO tuna fisheries to assess potential economic outcomes under alternative management BLOCKINoptions Executive BLOCKINSummary Globally, the value of including economic information in the management of fisheries is being increasingly recognized. For most fisheries, the long‐term maximum economic yield (MEY) that can be achieved occurs at higher biomass level...

Yellowfin tuna, an important component of tuna fisheries throughout the WCPO, are harvested with a diverse variety of gear types, from small-scale artisanal fisheries in Pacific Island and southeast Asian waters to large, distant-water longliners and purse seiners that operate widely in equatorial and tropical waters. Purse seiners catch a wide size range of yellowfin tuna, whereas the longline...