Bycatch of endangered loggerhead turtles in longline fisheries results in high rates of post-release mortality that may negatively impact populations. The factors contributing to post-release mortality have not been well studied, but traumatic injuries and physiological disturbances experienced as a result of capture are thought to play a role. The goal of our study was to gauge the physiologic...

Although some sea turtle populations are showing encouraging signs of recovery, others continue to decline. Reversing population declines requires an understanding of the primary factor(s) that underlie this persistent demographic trend. The list of putative factors includes direct turtle and egg harvest, egg predation, loss or degradation of nesting beach habitat, fisheries bycatch, pollution,...

Killer whale (Orcinus orca) depredation (whales stealing or damaging fish caught on fishing gear) adversely impacts demersal longline fisheries for sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria), Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) and Greenland turbot (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Western Gulf of Alaska. These interactions increase direct costs and opportunity co...

A combination of fisheries dependent and independent data was used to assess the vulnerability of the oceanic whitetip shark to pelagic longline fisheries. The Brazilian tuna longline fleet, operating in the equatorial and southwestern Atlantic, is used as a case study. Fisheries dependent data include information from logbooks (from 1999 to 2011) and on-board observers (2004 to 2010), totaling...

Article history: Received 14 September 2005 Received in revised form 10 December 2005 Accepted 19 December 2005 Available online 14 February 2006 There has been a growing concern about the interactions of endangered sea turtles with the pelagic longline fishery in Hawaii recently. Some tough measures including a swordfish harvest ban have been put into effect since 2000 to protect these turtles...

2 Trends in size composition of longline-caught albacore in the South Pacific. Executive summary Size of albacore (nominal mean weight from logsheets and median lengths from length-frequency data supplied through observer and port sampling programmes), revealed trends in the size of albacore by domestic fleets of sub-equatorial EEZs. The impacts of domestic fisheries, changes in recruitment str...

Blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) sup(MSY) and that current harvests are port commercial and recreational more than twice the replacement yield, fisheries throughout the tropical and further contributing to the decline of subtropical waters of the Atlantic the stock (ICCAT, 2001). A reduction in Ocean. The species is taken in directed fishing mortality of approximately 60% recreational and artisa...

A new habitat-based model is developed to improve estimates of relative abundance of Pacific bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus). The model provides estimates of ‘effective’ longline effort and therefore better estimates of catch-per-unit-of-effort (CPUE) by incorporating information on the variation in longline fishing depth and depth of bigeye tuna preferred habitat. The essential elements in the mo...

Industrial longline fisheries cause the death of large numbers of seabirds annually. Various mitigation measures have been proposed, including the use of tori lines. In this study the efficiency of a single tori line to reduce seabird bycatch was tested on pelagic longline vessels (25-37m length). Thirteen fishing trips were carried out in the area and season of the highest bycatch rates record...

Much debate and subsequent confusion have recently been generated regarding the economic importance of the longline fisheries for tuna and swordfish in Hawaii. Depending on the methodology employed, the measures of the economic importance of these fisheries to Hawaii can vary significantly. This paper attempts to provide an assessment of the alternative measures and their implications for fishe...