ANZUELOS CIRCULARES VS. ANZUELOS \"J\" EN LA FLOTA PALANGRERA URUGUAYA

SCRS/2008/035

Collect. Vol. Sci. Pap. ICCAT, 64(7): 2427-2442 (2009)

ANZUELOS CIRCULARES VS. ANZUELOS “J” EN LA FLOTA PALANGRERA URUGUAYA Andrés Domingo 1, Caren Barceló

2,1

, Yonat Swimmer 3, Maite Pons 1 , Philip Miller 1

SUMMARY The use of circular hooks in pelagic longline fisheries has been proposed as a method to reduce the incidental catch of sea turtles. Experiments were carried out on the Uruguayan longline fleet to compare the catch using circular hooks (18/0, 10º offset) and conventional J type (9/0) hooks. This experiment was carried out on board an industrial longliner fishing in the southwestern Atlantic (ASO). During the January-November 2007 period, a total of 77,628 hooks (39,026 J hooks and 38,602 C hooks) in 165 sets were analyzed. A total of 69 loggerheads were caught during the experiment, 28 in C hooks and 41 in J hooks, with a CPUE of 0.73 and 1.05, respectively. The total catch, in number, of the target species was greater with the C hooks, which is significant for tunas (BET, ALB, YFT) (BET, X2 = 13.9, p