Southeast Fisheries Science Center (U.S.)

"The following sea turtle handling protocols, prepared by NOAA Fisheries Southeast Fisheries Science Center, describe the tools and techniques for removing fishing gear from incidentally captured sea turtles and other bycatch species. They should be followed whenever an interaction, such as a hooking and/ or an entanglement, with a sea turtle occurs. The survival benefit of removing gear from animals before release has been clearly demonstrated. The required and recommended equipment and technique s described here are intended to reduce sea turtle injury and promote post-release survival. A demonstration of the use of these tools and techniques can been seen in the video Removing Fishing Gear from Longline Caught Sea Turtles (Hataway and Epperly 2004). Although these guidelines were written for sea turtle release, this equipment should also be used for all bycatch species to reduce mortality"--Introduction, paragraph 1.

Technical Memorandum