Information Needs 



As demonstrated in the review of information on incidental 

 catch presented at WATS I, there is much to be learned about the 

 level, location, and type of incidental capture and mortality of 

 sea turtles in fisheries and other human activities in the 

 western Atlantic. The problem of gathering such information on a 

 regional basis is enormous. A regional view of where sea turtles 

 and fishing activities overlap and where incidental capture may 

 be a significant problem needs to be identified. As a first step 

 we can begin by focusing upon these areas. Several large atlases 

 on the distribution and relative abundance of marine resources 

 have been published and would provide an overview of the scope of 

 the problem. 



Several types of information must be gathered beyond general 

 information on incidental capture. I suggest that by gathering 

 the following types of information, countries will be able to 

 identify potential fishery conflicts and how to address them: 



- type of gear used in a country's fisheries, 



- means and locations of deployment of this gear, 



- target species, 



- level of fishing effort seasonally, 



- incidental catch, 



- sea turtle capture and mortality, 



- species, sex and age of captured animals, 



- fate of turtle (e.g., returned alive, 

 returned dead, consumed) . 



With this information, means of reducing conflicts may be devised 

 that will minimize impacts on the fisheries and on wild turtle 

 populations. 



Conclusion 



Little work has been done on developing means of assessing 

 the economic implications of the incidental capture of sea 

 turtles. Indeed, most methods of assessing the value of wild 

 populations of animals are very controversial (Tarnas et al. 

 1987) . 



In attempting to divine the economic impact of requiring 

 some shrimp fishermen to buy and use TEDs in the U.S. shrimp 

 fishery, the U.S. federal government was only able to measure the 

 cost of investment in TEDs as a portion of the total revenue 

 generated in the fishery. Some fishermen have maintained that 

 TEDs will reduce their catch and thereby reduce their income but 

 have produced no systematically gathered information to support 

 this. Furthermore, the federal government did not attempt to 

 measure benefits that will arise from the conservation of 



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