Fisheries bycatch mortalities of sooty shearwaters (Puffinus griseus) and short-tailed shearwaters (P. tenuirostris)

Abstract

The magnitude of the incidental ‘bycatch’ of two petrels, sooty shearwater (Puffinus griseus) and short-tailed shearwater (P. tenuirostris) in Pacific and Atlantic Ocean fisheries was estimated from a review of 46 published and unpublished documents. Though abundant, both species are harvested for food, and high levels of bycatch could affect the sustainable management of harvested populations. Bycatch of P. griseus and P. tenuirostris was evidenced from 14 net fisheries (21 reports), 5 longline fisheries (13 reports) and a trawl fishery (3 reports). In the past, these species were frequently captured by driftnets of fisheries in the central North Pacific, with sooty shearwaters especially in nets of the Japanese squid fishery from 1978 to 1991 and shorttailed shearwaters in the Japanese mothership salmon driftnet fishery from 1952 to 1988. These and several other ocean fisheries are now closed, and mortalities in present fisheries are much reduced. However, many fisheries have no observers, and available information may often be inaccurate, so that estimating total magnitude of bycatch within robust statistical limits is difficult.