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NOAA
PARTNERS WITH FISHERY ORGANIZATIONS, ACADEMIA, AND PRIVATE INDUSTRY
TO DEVELOP NEW TECHNOLOGIES THAT SAVE SEA TURTLES
August
16, 2004 — After several years under mandatory restrictions, the
U.S. swordfish longline fishery in the Pacific and the Grand Banks in
the Atlantic are operating again — now that there is a viable solution
to help reduce sea
turtle bycatch on longline gear. Based on studies supported or conducted
by NOAA Fisheries, in cooperation
with fishermen, academia and private industry, certain style hooks and
bait combinations have demonstrated a reduction in sea turtle/longline
gear interactions. An earlier study
funded by NOAA Fisheries and conducted by the Archie Carr Center for Sea
Turtle Research, University of Florida, in collaboration with the University
of the Azores, found that the use of circle hooks significantly reduced
the chance of serious injury to sea turtles. The traditional “J”-style
hook caught 80 percent of the turtles in the throat compared to 10 percent
for the circle hook. In a second study conducted by the NOAA
Fisheries Pascagoula Laboratory and the NOAA
Fisheries Miami Laboratory, in cooperation with Blue
Water Fishermen’s Association, encounters with leatherback and
loggerhead turtles were reduced by 65 and 90 percent, respectively, by
switching from the traditional hook to large (18/0) circle hooks baited
with mackerel. NOAA Fisheries, in collaboration with private industry,
has also developed devices to improve disentangling and dehooking sea
turtles when it is safe to do so without further injury to the turtle.
This
research was such a success that NOAA Fisheries now requires the use of
these new technologies in U.S. longline fisheries in both the Atlantic
and Pacific. Specifically, U.S. longline fishermen in the Pacific are
now required to use circle hooks instead of the standard industry J-hook
and squid bait and are required to carry certain types of equipment and
utilize handling protocols to facilitate the safe release of sea turtles
(i.e., dipnets, dehookers and line cutters).
"This program is a fine example of a cooperative effort between NOAA Fisheries, fishing industry organizations, academia and private industry to solve a complex environmental problem. The positive results will ensure a healthy and richly diverse marine ecosystem," said Bill Hogarth, director of NOAA Fisheries. "The development of effective measures to minimize sea turtle bycatch will help ensure successful turtle conservation efforts and allow valuable commercial fisheries to continue to operate."
NOAA Fisheries and its partners also launched an education initiative to share the results of this work with the international longline fishing community and invite them to utilize these new technologies in an effort to protect sea turtles by making all the worlds longline operations more selective.
Threatened
and Endangered Sea Turtles
Sea turtles are highly migratory and widely distributed throughout
the world’s oceans. Of the seven species found worldwide, six are
found in U.S. waters and include the loggerhead,
Kemp’s
ridley, olive
ridley, green,
leatherback
and hawksbill.
All nations value the existence of these ancient animals, yet sea turtle
populations continue to decline worldwide. If fact, all six species of
sea turtles found in the United States are currently listed either as
endangered
or threatened under the Endangered
Species Act. NOAA Fisheries is responsible for ensuring sea turtles
are protected
in the marine environment, including monitoring and reducing sea turtle
interactions with U.S. longline fishing vessels.
Impact
of Fisheries on Sea Turtles
Sea turtles are threatened or endangered with extinction as a
result of many human-related activities, including the incidental capture
in fisheries worldwide. In response, NOAA Fisheries has focused its efforts
on reducing bycatch of sea turtles in domestic fisheries, such as trawls,
longlines and gillnets. Over the last decade, advances have been made
toward reducing sea turtle interactions with fishing gear. However, there
are still many fisheries related threats to sea turtles in U.S. and international
waters.
Shrimp
Trawls
One of the
ways NOAA Fisheries has already acted to protect sea turtles is by requiring
the
use of turtle
excluder devices by U.S. trawl fishermen and by foreign vessels catching
shrimp
for the U.S. market. TEDs
are hard or soft grids/panels installed in the trawl that allow shrimp
to pass to the back of the net while directing sea turtles out an escape
opening. TEDs currently required in the United States are estimated to
reduce sea turtle bycatch by approximately 97 percent.
Longline
Another
critical step toward recovering sea turtles is reducing bycatch in the
pelagic longline fishery. Longline fishing boats deploy lines with baited
hooks to attract popular fish, such as swordfish,
tuna and
mahi mahi.
The longlines are periodically reeled in and the fish removed, but sea
turtles also get caught on the lines and hooks — often drowning
before they can be recovered and released.
NOAA originally addressed this issue by placing restrictions on U.S. longline fishing fleets (i.e., extensive time and area closures) in the Western Pacific and the Grand Banks fishing grounds in the Atlantic. However, because sea turtles are highly migratory (and U.S. boats represent only six percent of the worldwide longline fishing effort) they encounter longline fleets operating throughout the ocean basins. “In order to effectively protect these species, other nations must also address sea turtle bycatch in their longline fleets,” Dr. Hogarth stated. “NOAA Fisheries and its partners are advocating a global approach to turtle conservation.”
Research
Results
Sea turtle populations are endangered or threatened with becoming extinct,
and longline fisheries are known to impact these populations. Research
was needed to come up with alternative fishing practices that would reduce
sea turtle bycatch and be adopted by both the U.S. and international longline
fishermen.
Fortunately, exciting new developments in gear and longline fishing methods in the Atlantic Ocean have found that using 18/0 circle hooks and mackerel as bait significantly reduced both the loggerhead and leatherback turtle take when compared to the industry standard J-hooks and squid bait. Why? Because sea turtles can't easily ingest large circle hooks. Circle hooks were also found to be much less likely to snag drifting leatherbacks. The more traditional longline fishing hooks (J-hooks) baited with squid, however proved to be much more harmful to sea turtles because they can be more deeply ingested and are more difficult to remove. In fact, NOAA and partners found that encounters with leatherback and loggerhead turtles can be reduced by as much as 65 percent to 90 percent just by switching the type of hook and bait from the traditional J-hook with squid to a large circle style hook (which is rounder and has a much smaller opening) with mackerel.
Most sea turtle deaths attributed to commercial fishing gear occur when the gear is not removed (or removed improperly) from the turtle. As a result, NOAA researchers and private industry developed dehookers and line cutters — so that fishermen could remove longline gear when it was safe to do so without further injury to the sea turtle. Removing gear is believed to decrease post-release mortality.
The success of the longline gear experiments and recent estimates of sea turtle bycatch in the Atlantic pelagic longline fishery prompted NOAA Fisheries to propose mandatory changes in fishing practices for the fleet. With the institution of these changes, turtle takes should be significantly reduced and U.S. fishermen have regained access to prime swordfish fishing grounds in the Northeast Distant Fishery and other U.S. longline fishing areas. Results of the studies have also received the endorsement of fishermen and the World Wildlife Fund, a non-governmental organization working to conserve sea turtles and other imperiled species around the globe.
Economic
Incentives
There are also economic incentives for both the U.S. and international
longline fishermen to use sea turtle bycatch reduction techniques:
Circle
hooks catch fish on the side of the mouth, so the fish stay alive longer
resulting in a higher quality product — an important incentive
for all commercial fleets. - The pelagic longline industry may have fewer bycatch-related restrictions since a significant bycatch reduction is anticipated with bycatch reduction techniques.
- NOAA research indicated that the combination of large circle hooks with whole finfish (e.g., mackerel) bait increased both the size and quantity of the targeted swordfish catch by up to 30 percent.
- The cost of circle hooks is negligible and because longline hooks are routinely replaced anyway, it would not be difficult to incorporate circle hooks into the longline fishing industry. Likewise, the new gear developed to more safely release sea turtles costs only about $1,200 per kit. Therefore, implementing similar measures industry/worldwide will be relatively inexpensive.
- The United States is a major importer of seafood — only one out of every 10 shrimp eaten in the United States is domestically produced and the United States imports three to five times more swordfish than it produces domestically. Ecologically minded consumers in the United States have a strong interest in seeing global longline fleets adopt these conservation measures.
Education
and Outreach Efforts
NOAA Fisheries and its partners are now launching an international education
initiative to invite all fishing nations with pelagic longline fleets
to begin utilizing these new technologies to make all the worlds longline
operations more selective and help protect sea turtles.
In 2003, NOAA partnered with the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission to conduct training workshops for sea turtle bycatch reduction. More than 800 fishermen throughout Ecuador attended the workshop. NOAA recently participated in similar workshops in Costa Rica and there is growing interest in other countries, such as Japan and Taiwan.
Technologies and techniques developed by NOAA Fisheries to mitigate turtle bycatch in longling fisheries have already been introduced to Pacific Islands with their growing longline fleets. Assistance activities have also been completed in the Federated States of Micronesia, and are currently underway in Papua New Guinea and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (and will soon begin in the Solomon Islands).
“Our cooperative research with industry has shown that these turtle bycatch reduction techniques have been successfully tested in the Atlantic and are a viable solution for meeting similar objectives in other areas,” said Hogarth. “I’m asking all nations to match our efforts and evaluate these techniques in their fisheries so we can meet our shared responsibility to protect sea turtles and allow commercial fishing to prosper,” he added.
Other
NOAA Sea Turtle Efforts and Activities
Other
NOAA offices involved in this and other sea turtle research and conservation
efforts include the following:
NOAA
Fisheries
- Office of Protected Resources
- Southeast Regional Office
- Southeast Fisheries Science Center
- Southwest Regional Office
- Southwest Fisheries Science Center
- Pacific Island Regional Office
- Pacific Area Islands Fisheries Science Center
- Northeast Regional Office
- Northeast Fisheries Science Center
NOAA Ocean Service
Relevant
Web Sites
Northeast
Distant Fishery Experiment
NOAA’S SOUTHEAST FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER
NOAA
Fisheries Galveston Laboratory - Sea Turtle Research
NOAA’S SOUTHWEST FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER
NOAA SWFSC Sea Turtle Research Program
Media
Contact:
Connie
Barclay,
NOAA Fisheries, (301) 713-2370
x 144