WWF Caribbean Bycatch Documents

Carlos Drews, Latin America and the Caribbean Marine Turtle Coordinator for WWF Central America, contributed the following documents regarding bycatch in the Caribbean and Latin America. Thank you, Carlos!

WWF Report - Bycatch in French Guiana Gillnets — by Daniel Dunn — last modified 2007-10-01 12:10

Three sea turtles species are common in French Guiana: the leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), the olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) and the green (Chelonia mydas). The French Guiana gillnetting fleet fishes near the coast with bottom-set or drifting nets. This fishery is very disparate (nets, fishing areas, boats, places of landings). During this interviewbased survey made with 39 professionals from Cayenne, Kourou, Sinnamary, Iracoubo/Organabo and Awala-Yalimapo, 428 incidental catches in 2004 and 473 in 2005 were listed, . A stratification per place of landings gives the estimation of 1604±578 interactions in 2004 and from 1144±336 to 1558±504 in 2005. The leatherback turtle is the most commonly species caught (74,3% in 2004 ; 81,8% in 2005). These incidental catches occur on the whole French Guiana coast. Nets longer than 2000 m, higher than 4 m and with large mesh lead to a significantly more important number of marine turtle incidental catches.

WWF Report -Bycatch in Suriname — by Daniel Dunn — last modified 2007-10-01 12:23

On behalf of the World Wildlife Fund Suriname a survey was done to estimate the number of turtles caught by the coastal fishing boats of Suriname. It started the 1st of March 2006 till the end of August 2006. The focus of this report is the coastal fleet (SK), fishing methods, gear, landings etc and the number of turtles caught during the above mentioned period.

Captures accidentelles de tortues marines (in French) — by Daniel Dunn — last modified 2007-10-02 13:22

Guegen, F. (2000) Captures accidentelles de tortues marines. Bull. Soc. Herp. Fr. 93 : 27-36 Accidental captures of sea turtles during commercial shrimp trawling in French Guiana. Five species of turtle occur in tropical waters off the coast of French Guiana. In order to establish the level of vulnerability of the different turtles to Guianan shrimp trawlers' gear, a total of 281 experimental trawls were conducted on the continental shelf at depths of 0-60 m during three surveys in 1992 and 1993. Further data were also obtained from commercial trawls. Results showed that olive ridley turtles were the most vulnerable because of their small size, and benthic and sedentary behaviour. All accidental captures of the species were made at depths between 30 and 50m in feeding grounds on the northwest of the continental shelf. The limited data obtained during this survey did not allow the true impact of Guinan shrimp fishing on the different sea turtle populations to be determined.