Estimated Fleetwide Turtle Takes and Kills in the Hawaiian Longline Fishery, 1994-1998

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In its recently issued 1998 report on pelagic fisheries regulated by the Western Pacific council, NMFS lists the numbers of each species of sea turtle it estimates to have been hooked that calendar year.

The loggerhead turtles, federally listed as a threatened species, continue to lead the list of turtle interactions. In 1998, NMFS estimates 363 were hooked by longline vessels, with 63 of those turtles dying as a result. While this level exceeds the take allowed in the 1994 biological opinion, it is well under the level of 103 allowed kills set in the 1998 opinion.

These figures are estimates drawn up by NMFS statisticians. If one looks to the error bars, or 95 percent confidence levels set by the staticians, the actual number of loggerheads hooked in 1998 could be as high as 515 or as low as 262, while the number killed could be as low as 43 or as high as 92.

The number of critically endangered leatherback turtles hooked in 1998 biological opinions. Of those, as the accompanying chart shows, 11 are thought to have died as a result.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 10, Number 7 January 2000

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