Whale depredation in the South Georgia Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) fishery in the South Atlantic: a comparison of estimation methods

Type Article
Date 2021-12
Language English
Author(s) Earl Timothy1, Macleod Eleanor1, 2, Soffker Marta1, Gasco Nico3, Massiot-Granier Felix3, Tixier Paul4, Darby Christopher1
Affiliation(s) 1 : Centre for the Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences, Lowestoft, UK
2 : Marine Scotland Science, Aberdeen, UK
3 : Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Laboratoire de biologie des organismes et Ecosystemes Aquatiques (BOREA), Paris, Île-de-France, France
4 : MARBEC Université de Montpellier-CNRS-IFREMER-IRD, Avenue Jean Monnet CS 30171, 34203 Sète, France
Source Ices Journal Of Marine Science (1054-3139) (Oxford Univ Press), 2021-12 , Vol. 78 , N. 10 , P. 3817-3833
DOI 10.1093/icesjms/fsab212
WOS© Times Cited 1
Keyword(s) depredation, longline, marine mammal, modelling, odontocete, South Atlantic, South Georgia
Abstract Removal of fish from gear by marine predators, known as depredation, is a fishery dependent mortality that needs to be included in stock assessments for affected stocks to avoid misestimation of the assessed resource. Toothed whales engage regularly in depredation from longlines, and while in some regions they leave clear marks of depredation activity, in the longline fisheries in the Southern Ocean they often leave no trace of removal, making it necessary to estimate depredation through modelling approaches. Several modelling approaches have been developed over the past decade in affected Southern Ocean fisheries, and in this paper, we examine five applications of common CPUE model structures to the same dataset from the longline fishery around South Georgia. We then compare the estimates of depredation with those based on observed bycatch ratios. The different model structures estimated very similar annual depredation removals, with all approaches averaging around 5% of the catch removed throughout the entire fishery. While depredation varies spatially, the different modelling approaches consistently highlighted areas where the impact of depredation was highest.
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Earl Timothy, Macleod Eleanor, Soffker Marta, Gasco Nico, Massiot-Granier Felix, Tixier Paul, Darby Christopher (2021). Whale depredation in the South Georgia Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) fishery in the South Atlantic: a comparison of estimation methods. Ices Journal Of Marine Science, 78(10), 3817-3833. Publisher's official version : https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab212 , Open Access version : https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00749/86144/