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Sharks caught by the Brazilian tuna longline fleet: an overview

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Abstract

Large pelagic sharks are distributed throughout all of the oceans and are caught as bycatch in pelagic longline fisheries worldwide. In the southern Atlantic Ocean, more than a dozen shark species are caught by the Brazilian tuna longline fleet. This study compiles information of the main shark species caught by the Brazilian tuna longline fishery in the southwestern and equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Catch and effort data of 14,860 longline sets from the Brazilian chartered tuna longline fleet, between 2004 and 2010, were analyzed. The blue shark Prionace glauca was the main shark species captured by this fishery. Shark catches showed contrasting trends during the study period: the silky (Carcharhinus falciformis) and the oceanic whitetip (C. longimanus) sharks catch increased up to 2008 and then declined, while mako sharks (Isurus spp.) showed an opposite trend. Effort for the Brazilian longline fishery had a higher concentration from 10°N to 30°S and from 20°W to 40°W. High values of catch per unit effort of southwestern and equatorial Atlantic Ocean sharks were heterogeneously distributed and, although elasmobranchs were caught over most of the longline fishing range, only blue sharks were caught in all areas. In the southern Atlantic Ocean, high fishing effort zones overlap significantly with some nursery areas, especially for the oceanic whitetip shark, indicating that these areas are at a direct risk from the industrial longline fishery.

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Acknowledgments

This work was made possible by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture of Brazil, through the on-board observer program, and was developed in the context of the European project MADE (Mitigating adverse ecological impacts of open ocean fisheries). The authors would also like to acknowledge the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for providing a fellowship to M.T. Tolotti and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for providing a research grant to the F. Lucena Frédou and T. Frédou. During part of this work R. Coelho was supported by a Post-Doc Grant (Ref: SFRH/BPD/93936/2013) from FCT—the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Pesca e Aquicultura, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Av. Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n., Dois Irmãos, Recife, PE, CEP: 52.171-030, Brazil

    Flávia Lucena Frédou, Thierry Frédou, Paulo Travassos & Fábio Hissa Vieira Hazin

  2. Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Centre de Recherche Halieutique Méditerranéenne et Tropicale (CRH), Av. Jean Monnet, BP 171, 34203, Sète Cedex, France

    Flávia Lucena Frédou, Mariana Travassos Tolotti & Thierry Frédou

  3. Departamento de Oceanografia, Programa de Pós-graduação em Oceanografia – Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Av. Prof. Moraes Rego, 1235, Cidade Universitária, Recife, PE, CEP: 50670-901, Brazil

    Mariana Travassos Tolotti

  4. Program of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32653, USA

    Felipe Carvalho

  5. Departamento de Ciências Animais, Universidade Federal Rural do Semi-Árido, Av. Francisco Mota, 572, Costa e Silva, Mossoró, RN, CEP: 59.625-900, Brazil

    Humberto Hazin

  6. Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, 280 Dickinson Hall, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    George Burgess

  7. Centro de Ciências do Mar (CCMAR), Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, FCT Ed. 7., 8005-139, Faro, Portugal

    Rui Coelho

  8. Aquatic Research and Conservation Society, 2915 Payne Avenue, Little Canada, MN, 55117, USA

    John D. Waters

Authors
  1. Flávia Lucena Frédou
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  2. Mariana Travassos Tolotti
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  3. Thierry Frédou
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  4. Felipe Carvalho
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  5. Humberto Hazin
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  6. George Burgess
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  7. Rui Coelho
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  8. John D. Waters
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  9. Paulo Travassos
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  10. Fábio Hissa Vieira Hazin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Flávia Lucena Frédou.

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Lucena Frédou, F., Tolotti, M.T., Frédou, T. et al. Sharks caught by the Brazilian tuna longline fleet: an overview. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 25, 365–377 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-014-9380-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-014-9380-8

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