Adjusting time-of-day and depth of fishing provides an economically viable solution to seabird bycatch in an albacore tuna longline fishery

Details

• Journal Title:
  Scientific Reports
• Personal Author:
  Gilman, Eric ; Evans, Tom ; Pollard, Iain ; Chaloupka, Milani
• NOAA Program & Office:
  PIFSC (Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center) ; NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service)
• Description:
  Marine megafauna exposed to fisheries bycatch belong to some of the most threatened taxonomic groups and include apex and mesopredators that contribute to ecosystem regulation. Fisheries bycatch is a major threat to the conservation of albatrosses, large petrels and other pelagic seabirds. Using data sourced from a fisheries electronic monitoring system, we assessed the effects of the time-of-day and relative depth of fishing on seabird and target species catch rates for a Pacific Ocean pelagic longline fishery that targets albacore tuna with an apparently high albatross bycatch rate. Using a Bayesian inference workflow with a spatially-explicit generalized additive mixed model for albacore tuna and generalized linear mixed regression models both for combined albatrosses and combined seabirds, we found that time-of-day and fishing depth did not significantly affect the target species catch rate while night-time deep setting had > 99% lower albatross and total seabird catch rates compared to both deep and shallow partial day-time sets. This provides the first evidence that night-time setting in combination with fishing deep reduces seabird catch risk and may be commercially viable in this and similar albacore tuna longline fisheries. Findings support evidence-informed interventions to reduce the mortality of threatened seabird bycatch species in pelagic longline fisheries.
• Keywords:
  Multidisciplinary
• Source:
  Scientific Reports, 13(1)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-29616-7
• ISSN:
  2045-2322
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  Springer Science and Business Media LLC
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1f5e193d855a1c1ac80a94542c063b6425a31b7526087fad08f08b49cfb7afd3047417565c14efe2b480e5afffd66c5fe3cb50b6ccda911fa44b5e3c83963030
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/62905/noaa_62905_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.00 MB ]