A novel tool to mitigate by-catch mortality of baltic seals in coastal fyke net fishery
Developing methods to reduce the incidental catch of non-target species is important, as by-catch mortality poses threats especially to large aquatic predators. We examined the effectiveness of a novel device, a "seal sock", in mitigating the by-catch mortality of seals in coastal fyke net...
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Published in | PloS one Vol. 10; no. 5; p. e0127510 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Public Library of Science
18.05.2015
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Developing methods to reduce the incidental catch of non-target species is important, as by-catch mortality poses threats especially to large aquatic predators. We examined the effectiveness of a novel device, a "seal sock", in mitigating the by-catch mortality of seals in coastal fyke net fisheries in the Baltic Sea. The seal sock developed and tested in this study was a cylindrical net attached to the fyke net, allowing the seals access to the surface to breathe while trapped inside fishing gear. The number of dead and live seals caught in fyke nets without a seal sock (years 2008-2010) and with a sock (years 2011-2013) was recorded. The seals caught in fyke nets were mainly juveniles. Of ringed seals (Phoca hispida botnica) both sexes were equally represented, while of grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) the ratio was biased (71%) towards males. All the by-caught seals were dead in the fyke nets without a seal sock, whereas 70% of ringed seals and 11% of grey seals survived when the seal sock was used. The seal sock proved to be effective in reducing the by-catch mortality of ringed seals, but did not perform as well with grey seals. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Conceived and designed the experiments: SMO MPA JO MK. Performed the experiments: SMO MPA JO MK. Analyzed the data: SMO. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SMO MPA JO MK. Wrote the paper: SMO MPA JO MK. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0127510 |