Abstract

The Oceanic Fish Restoration Project (OFRP) is a voluntary, temporary, and low regulatory restoration initiative, managed by NOAA and partnered with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). The OFRP aims to restore pelagic fish populations impacted by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill by reducing fishing mortality of bycatch and other non-target pelagic fish species caught in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) pelagic longline (PLL) fishery with two separate, but complementary actions: a repose period and the encouraged use of alternative fishing gear. During the voluntary repose, participating PLL vessels are compensated to not use PLL gear for six months (January through June, 2017-2022) in order to reduce discards in the fishery, thereby restoring biomass. For the alternative gear component, participants can fish for target species during the repose with non-PLL gear provided by the OFRP (greenstick, buoy gear, and deep-drop/rod-and-reel) to reduce the economic impacts to the vessel owners, fishers, and shoreside support industries caused by reduced catches of target species, as well as to evaluate the competitiveness of the alternative gears with PLL in regards to overall catch rates. To increase the probability success of the OFRP repose and alternative gear performance, a metric expectation of reducing dead discards by 11,600 discounted kilograms (dkg) of whole weight fish biomass per vessel per year was targeted. Based on preliminary analysis of OFRP data collected from 2017-2019, this target was exceeded every year (Piko 2021; Kerstetter & Garvey 2020). Although the alternative gears were found to produce overall low catch rates, the dead discard rate associated with alternative gear is minimal (Kerstetter & Garvey 2020). Based on preliminary data from avoided dead discards of swordfish across the three repose years, and a relatively high CPUE rates in comparison to other OFRP alternative gear types (2018-2021), buoy gear used to target swordfish is considered the most successful of the alternative gear types tested and was determined by OFRP to need further research in order to rectify restoration within the alternative gear portion of the project