MEMMS (Marine Ecosystems Modelling and Monitoring by Satellites), CLS Satellite Oceanography Division, Ramonville, France b PFRP (Pelagic Fisheries Research Program), University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA c LSCE/IPSL, UMR 1572 CE Saclay, Gif sur Yvette, France Oceanic Fisheries Programme, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Noumea, New Caledonia e ESSIC, Earth Science System Interd...

—Sharks, turtles, billfish, and marine mammals are frequently caught accidentally in commercial fisheries. Although conservationists and fisheries managers encourage the release of these nontarget species, the long-term outcome of released animals is uncertain. Using blue sharks Prionace glauca, we developed a model to predict the long-term survival of released animals based on analysis of smal...

Most marine protected areas are only partially protected in that they commonly permit fishing, a primary ecosystem-distorting activity. Many indeed are no more than ‘paper parks’. The creation of no-take MPAs lags well behind several national declarations of intent and certainly lags behind need. A letter calling for more of these no-take zones has been signed by 250 of the world’s leading scie...

The worldwide occurrence of complex climate-induced ecological shifts in marine systems is one of the major challenges in sustainable bio-resources management. The occurrence of ecological environment-driven shifts was studied in the Southern Caspian Sea using the "shiftogram" method on available fisheries-related (i.e. commercially important bentho-pelagic fish stocks) ecological and climatic ...

Fisheries management agencies and fishing industry representatives depend on reliable estimates of fish biomass and mortality for the determination of sustainable catch levels. Lack of data or misreporting may be reasons for unreliable stock assessment, which, in turn, may result in advice that does not reflect the availability of fisheries resources. It has been suggested that the mixed pelagi...

Fisheries bycatch is a recognized threat to marine megafauna. Addressing bycatch of pelagic species however is challenging owing to the dynamic nature of marine environments and vagility of these organisms. In order to assess the potential for species to overlap with fisheries, we propose applying dynamic habitat models to determine relative probabilities of species occurrence for specific ocea...

The incidental capture, or bycatch, of non-target species such as mammals, birds, turtles, fish and other marine species in fisheries is recognised to be a major problem in many parts of the world. It has been estimated that 23% of the global fisheries catch is thrown back into the sea dead and wasted. Globally, the toll on all cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) is estimated to exceed 3...

Fisheries have removed at least 50 million tons of tuna and other top-level predators from the Pacific Ocean pelagic ecosystem since 1950, leading to concerns about a catastrophic reduction in population biomass and the collapse of oceanic food chains. We analyzed all available data from Pacific tuna fisheries for 1950-2004 to provide comprehensive estimates of fishery impacts on population bio...

Juvenile loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) have recently been documented in the vicinity of Baja California and thousands of these animals have been captured in oceanic fisheries of the North Pacific. The presence of loggerhead turtles in the central and eastern North Pacific is a prominent enigma in marine turtle distribution because the nearest documented nesting concentrations for this sp...