"The threatened loggerhead sea turtle is exposed to major anthropogenic hazards such as pelagic fisheries, coastal net fisheries, and alteration of nesting beaches. Many turtles caught in pelagic longline fisheries are alive when released from the gear (Witzell 1999) but might die soon after because of hook-induced injuries. There are few robust estimates of post-release mortality for sea turtles despite being essential for risk assessment and hazard mitigation (Chaloupka et al. 2004). We used pop-up satellite archival tag (PSAT) telemetry deployed by 2 different observer programs to estimate post-release mortality of 29 loggerheads caught in US-based North Pacific pelagic longline fisheries between 2002 and 2006. The Pacific longline fisheries out of California and Hawaii were both previously found to cause jeopardy to the continued existence to leatherback and loggerhead sea turtle populations under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the fisheries were temporarily closed. In an effort to provide reliable estimates of survivorship of sea turtles after longline-fisheries encounters, we trained at-sea fisheries observers in the attachment of PSATs on the carapace of hard-shelled sea turtles that were subsequently released from fishing gear. PSAT technology is considered more useful for estimating sea turtle post-release mortality than the more commonly used platform terminal transmitter (PTT) telemetry"--Page [1].

Professional Paper

Pacific Ocean

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)