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...

Many populations of marine megafauna, including seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals, and elasmobranchs, have declined in recent decades due largely to anthropogenic mortality. To successfully conserve these long-lived animals, efforts must be prioritized according to feasibility and the degree to which they address threats with the highest relative impacts on population dynamics. Recently, Wi...

Fisheries bycatch is a worldwide conservation issue. Despite a growing awareness of bycatch problems in particular ocean regions, there have been few efforts to identify spatial patterns in bycatch events. Furthermore, many studies of fisheries bycatch have been myopic, focusing on a single species or a single region. Using a range of analytical approaches to identify spatial patterns in bycatc...

Sea turtle bycatch in pelagic longline fishing gear is an ongoing threat to the conservation of sea turtle populations. However, these bycatch events do not occur uniformly in space or time. Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) bycatch rates reported in large fishing regions exhibited different degrees of interannual variability. Target catch and sea turtle bycatc...

From 1995 to 2006, US federal fisheries observers deployed aboard commercial fishing vessels in the US mid-Atlantic region documented captures of loggerhead Caretta caretta, green Chelonia mydas, Kemp’s ridley Lepidochelys kempii, and leatherback Dermochelys coriacea turtles in commercial sink gillnet gear. Data collected by these observers were used to characterize sea turtle bycatch in sink g...

Bycatch, as used in the present study, is the incidental catch of nontarget organisms that occurs to some extent in almost all commercial fi sheries (Alverson, 1994). Some of these incidentally caught organisms may be protected species—such as marine mammals, marine turtles, and seabirds—or they may be fish or invertebrates that are either harvested as target species by other fi sheries, or spe...

Since the 1970s the role of fishery bycatch as a factor reducing, or limiting the recovery of, marine mammal populations has been increasingly recognized. The proceedings of a 1990 International Whaling Commission symposium and workshop summarized fishery and bycatch data by region, fishery, and species, and estimated the significance of the ‘impacts’ of bycatch in passive gear on all cetacean ...

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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,...

Fisheries bycatch is a significant marine conservation issue as valuable fish are wasted and protected species harmed with potential negative ecological and socio-economic consequences. Even though there are indications that the small-scale handline fishery of the Galapagos Marine Reserve has a low selectivity, information on its bycatch has never been published. We used onboard monitoring and ...