Preliminary estimates of the number of sea turtle interactions with pelagic longline gear in the ICCAT convention area

In 2010, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) requested its Standing Committee on Research and Statistics to conduct an assessment of the impact of ICCAT fisheries on sea turtles. Information on the area of operation and reported fishing effort of 16 longline fleets fishing in the Atlantic in 2014 was obtained from the ICCAT EFFDIS (effort distribution) database. Sea turtle bycatch rates were identified for 6 fleets operating within the ICCAT convention area through a comprehensive literature review. For the remaining 9 fleets for which data were not available, bycatch rates were assigned based on spatial overlap of fleets with published rates. The total number of sea turtle interactions was estimated using the reported and assigned sea turtle bycatch rates per fleet and multiplied by reported total fishing effort deployed by the fleets. The total number of sea turtle interactions (all species combined) ranged from 18,708-25,731 for all ICCAT fleets fishing in 2014. However, this estimate should be considered an underestimation, as not all the pelagic longline effort was taken into consideration in the present study.