Abstract

Bycatch is a significant issue affecting fisheries management today and the incidental mortality of sea turtles in many fisheries is an important and often controversial conservation problem. Empirical data on the bycatch of turtles are lacking in artisanal and other small-scale coastal fisheries. For 10 days we conducted informal interviews with fishers, fishing net surveys, searched for strandings, and deployed fishing nets to quantify turtle bycatch in an artisanal fishery in the Dominican Republic. Our study area was a major feeding ground for hawksbill turtles within a Caribbean UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with artisanal fishers soaking nets daily. We calculated a catch per unit effort of 0.75 turtles/day (SD ± 0.96) from four experimental fishing trials using a bottom gillnet. With this CPUE and the daily bottom gillnets we encountered in surveys, we estimate a bycatch rate of ~1 turtle/day for our study area. We call for other rapid assessments that would aim to begin to quantify turtle bycatch from artisanal and other small-scale coastal fisheries to facilitate policy and management action protecting this critically endangered marine animal

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