Incorporating Circle Hooks Into Atlantic Pelagic Fisheries: Case Studies from the Commercial Tuna/Swordfish Longline and Recreational Billfish Fisheries

Shark Depredation and Unwanted Bycatch in Pelagic Longline Fisheries

Vulnerability of the Oceanic Whitetip Shark to Pelagic Longline Fisheries

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...

Pan-Atlantic analysis of the overlap of a highly migratory species, the leatherback turtle, with pelagic longline fisheries

Large oceanic migrants play important roles in ecosystems, yet many species are of conservation concern as a result of anthropogenic threats, of which incidental capture by fisheries is frequently identified. The last large populations of the leatherback turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, occur in the Atlantic Ocean, but interactions with industrial fisheries could jeopardize recent positive populat...

Shark catch in a pelagic longline fishery: Comparison of circle and tuna hooks

The effects of circle hooks on blue shark Prionace glauca catch in a pelagic longline fishery were assessed in fishing experiments on two research essels in the western North Pacific off the coast of Japan from May to September 2005. We used conventional tuna hooks (standard Japanese ook size; 3.8 sun) and two sizes of circle hooks (4.3 sun and 5.2 sun) for each fishing operation and compared c...

Progress report on the development and testing of the underwater bait setter for pelagic longline fisheries

1. This paper summarises recent progress and future work relating to the development, construction and testing of a device that sets hooks several metres underwater to avoid detection by seabirds. 2. The underwater setter is a stern-mounted hydraulically-driven device. It comprises components that are fixed to the vessel and a component (a capsule that holds the baited hook) that is driven down...