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Marine Turtle Newsletter 99:26, © 2003
Your Help is Needed to Estimate Turtle Bycatch from Longline Fisheries World-wide!
Rebecca Lewison
Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University Marine Lab, Beaufort, NC 28516, USA (Email: rebecca.lewison@duke.edu)
As part of an international collaborative research project, researchers at Duke University and Dalhousie University are working to assess sea turtle bycatch from longline fisheries worldwide. Currently, we are contacting scientists, officials, and organizations involved in turtle conservation to find local assessments of bycatch rates by longline vessels. Our goal is to obtain estimates from reports, publications, and existing observer programs of leatherback and loggerhead bycatch rates in oceans worldwide.
Without quantitative assessments of turtle bycatch, it is extremely difficult to evaluate likely population-level effects. As a result, management measures to protect turtles have been delayed. Bycatch data are limited, but it is out there. Our project is working to put the pieces of the puzzle together; we are using local bycatch data to generate a more complete regional analysis. This is no small task, but given the critical conservation status of sea turtles worldwide, we are determined to make the best possible assessment with the data currently available.
You can help! Do you have contact with scientists or activists currently working on turtle bycatch? Please ask them to contact us as soon as possible to discuss collaboration possibilities. Even small studies that evaluate the rate of turtle bycatch in local fisheries can provide extremely useful information for this global study. If you are interested in learning more about our project please contact me (details below) or visit: <http://moray.ml.duke.edu/faculty/crowder/research/crowder_and_myers_Mar_2002.pdf>
Rebecca Lewison, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University Marine Lab, Beaufort, NC 28516, USA
(Email: rebecca.lewison@duke.edu)