First, 19 of the 40 national reports prepared for WATS I 

 indicated some level of incidental capture of sea turtles. These 

 countries are: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Brazil, 

 British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Honduras, 

 Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, 

 Nicaragua, Surinam, Turks and Caicos, the United States, and 

 Venezuela (see also Bacon et al. 1984, p. 166). Five countries 

 provided estimates of the level of capture, with the United 

 States providing the greatest detail (see below) . 



The methods of capture included gill nets, pound nets, 

 shrimp trawls, shark nets, fish weirs, beach seines, trammel 

 nets, hook and line fishing, spearguns, and longlines. The 

 various types of net gear dominated reports of incidental catch. 

 This is by no means surprising considering how non-selective such 

 gear is. 



Green, loggerhead, and hawksbill sea turtles were listed 

 most frequently as species incidentally captured in the Wider 

 Caribbean region. In the discussion of the olive ridley at WATS 

 I, J. Schulz noted that most of the 59 olive ridleys tagged and 

 released in Surinam were later caught in shrimp trawls off the 

 Guianas, Trinidad, Isla Margarita, and eastern Venezuela (Bacon 

 et al. 1984, p. 107). The British Virgin Islands, Mexico, and 

 the United States also reported captures of leatherbacks. 



Few countries presented any information regarding turtle 

 catches by foreign fishermen. Belize, British Virgin Islands, 

 and the United States did report unquantified captures of sea 

 turtles by Japanese longliners fishing for tuna and swordfish. 



Twenty-five of the 40 national reports recorded landings of 

 sea turtles, principally of hawksbills, greens, and loggerheads. 

 Interestingly, the most commonly cited method of capture was by 

 nets, including "turtle" nets, set nets, and trammel nets (see 

 Table II) . These gear types, which are used in many parts of the 

 world in fisheries for sharks and finfishes, are the very types 

 implicated in the incidental capture of sea turtles in many 

 areas. 



Incidental Capture of Sea Turtles in U.S. Fisheries 



Although sea turtles are incidentally caught as a result of 

 human activities such as dredging, most incidental captures occur 

 in connection with commercial fishing activities directed at 

 other species of animals, such as shrimp, sturgeon, or tuna. 

 Several authors have reviewed the incidental capture of sea 

 turtles in U.S. commercial fisheries (Murphy and Hopkins-Murphy 

 1987; Henwood and Stuntz 1987; O'Hara et al. 1986; Crouse 1984). 

 The much higher level of incidental capture of sea turtles in the 

 shrimp fishery has attracted the greatest attention. As a 



53 



