Preliminary study of the relative fishery impacts on non­‐tuna species caught in various tuna fisheries

Abstract

All fishing methods have some type of unintentional environmental impact. One impact that receives a lot of attention is the incidental catch of non-target species, often referred to as "bycatch"2. The purpose of this study is to provide descriptions of stock status (if available) and the relative impacts of different fisheries based on their current/recent levels of effort (if known), on non-tuna species3 caught incidentally in tuna fisheries (with an emphasis on those species that are caught by purse seine fisheries)