The term incidental catch does not differentiate between 

 turtles discarded alive, turtles discarded dead, and turtles 

 slaughtered for consumption. In the United States, best 

 estimates are that of about 48,000 sea turtles captured in shrimp 

 trawls each year from North Carolina to Texas, about 11,000 

 drown. While the capture of turtles is a cause for concern, the 

 incidental mortality of turtles in this fishery presents a much 

 more serious threat to the affected sea turtle populations. Yet, 

 the term incidental catch does not recognize this difference. 



Also, in some countries, some incidental catch is utilized 

 and may be considered a secondary target of a fishery. Thus, a 

 sea turtle caught in a trawl in some shrimp fisheries may be sold 

 as if it had been caught in a fishery directed at turtles and not 

 at shrimp. In another shrimp fishery, however, an incidentally 

 caught turtle may be returned to the water dead. While both 

 turtles have been caught incidentally, the first should probably 

 be reported as a landing and the second as an incidental catch. 

 However, the general use of the term incidental catch, which is 

 followed in the instructions to the WATS I national reports, does 

 not make this distinction. 



The distinction is not simply one of narrow semantics. 

 Rather, these differences in the end-use of by-catch demand 

 different conservation measures. In the case of utilized by- 

 catch, one might impose quotas, whereas one might seek to design 

 gear that would reduce by-catch, if the by-catch would otherwise 

 be discarded. 



The confusion surrounding the meaning of the term incidental 

 catch is expressed in another manner, also. Several countries 

 reported as incidental catch the capture of sea turtles by spear 

 fishermen who were fishing finfish or lobster. There are few if 

 any types of fishing gear as selective as spearguns. Such 

 captures are intentional, and therefore not incidental. 



Finally, as noted above, some types of fishing gear are by 

 design non-selective in the extreme. Such fisheries affect the 

 conservation of species other than sea turtles. In the U.S. Gulf 

 of Mexico shrimp fishery, for instance, more than 1.5 billion 

 pounds of juvenile finfish are captured and discarded each year 

 (Tarnas 1986) . I raise this issue to note that sea turtles are 

 but one of the victims of non-selective gear and to urge that in 

 reducing the incidental capture of sea turtles we not ignore the 

 discard of other incidentally captured marine life. 



The limitations on the term incidental catch that I have 

 discussed above should be kept in mind in the following summary 

 of the information provided in Tables 11, 13 and 14 of the 

 national reports presented at WATS I. These tables and 

 information from the discussions at WATS I are summarized in 

 Tables I and II of this report. 



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