NOTE Work et al.: Necropsy findings in sea turtles taken as bycatch in [he Nortii Pacific 



879 



together. The absence of lesions in pelagic green turtles 

 was in contrast to what is seen in immature and adult 

 specimens caught in nearshore habitats. In those cases, 

 most green turtles have systemic infections with vascular 

 flukes or fibropapillomas (Aguirre et al, 1998). This would 

 support the hypothesis that at least for immature turtles, 

 these diseases, while absent pelagically, are acquired once 

 the animals enter their near shore foraging pastures. It 

 is possible that very mild subtle lesions could have been 

 overlooked because many tissues had freeze-thaw arti- 

 facts. Should this be a major concern, future studies may 

 focus on doing necropsies on freshly dead turtles caught 

 on fishing boats; however, the logistics of doing this will 

 be more complicated. For example, vessels of the Hawaii- 

 based longline fishery are at sea for weeks at a time fish- 

 ing many hundreds of km from port. 



Stomach contents of olive ridley sea turtles in this study 

 (pelagic snails, pyrosomas, foreign bodies) were similar to 

 those seen by others (Parker et al., 2002; National Marine 

 Fisheries Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service^). The 

 presence of multiple baits in some olive ridley sea turtles 

 suggests that animals may graze from longline hooks. Py- 

 rosomas are found in stomachs of leatherback and green 

 turtles (National Marine Fisheries Service and US Fish 

 and Wildlife Service''-^), and leatherbacks are also attract- 

 ed to hooks baited with sama (Grant^) and squid (Skill- 

 man and Balazs, 1992). Given that fisheries may play a 

 significant role in the decline of leatherback sea turtles 

 (National Marine Fisheries Service and US Fish and 

 Wildlife Service"*), determining whether bait attraction or 

 entanglement pose the greater threat may be of manage- 

 ment value. Similarly, evaluating the basis of bait attrac- 

 tion for olive ridley sea turtles caught in longline fisheries 

 may provide clues that will help discourage interactions 

 between this species and fisheries. 



Acknowledgments 



Thanks are due to Doug Docherty for virus isolation as- 

 says, and Robert Rameyer, Shawn K.K. Murakawa, Shan- 

 dell Fames, and Denise M. Parker for technical assistance. 

 This work was supported by a National Marine Fisheries 

 Service Contract.40JJNF900126. 



2 National Marine Fisheries Service and U. S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service. 1998a. Recovery plan for U. S. Pacific populations of 

 the olive ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea). 63 p. National 

 Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Springs, MD, 20814. 



■» National Marine Fisheries Service and U. S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service. 1998. Recovery plan for U.S. Pacific populations of 

 the green turtle (Chelonia mydas). 84 p. National Marine 

 Fisheries Service, Silver Springs, MD, 20814. 



5 National Marine Fisheries Service and U. S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service. 1998. Recovery plan for U.S. Pacific populations of 

 the leatherback turtle {Dermochelys coriacea). 65 p. National 

 Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Springs, MD, 20814. 



^ Grant, G. S. 1994. Juvenile leatherback turtle caught by 

 long-line fishing in American Samoa. Marine Turtle Newslet- 

 ter. 66:3-5. 



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