208 
Fishery Bulletin 96(2), 1 998 
S tf 
Ar15&16 
rll 
bs jf 
spm 
g? 
fife 
Ar13&14 
cj 
^ftk 
stm 
E 
b 
-2 -U 
-2 
acu 
AM 7 
rd 
shbts 
but 
bsk 
ac 
&18 
-i 
Dimension 2 
Figure 9 
Correspondence analysis plot for species-area associations (fall) for 1995 fishing season. 
east of the Mississippi River and April-August. This 
hot spot was associated with the by catch of Atlantic 
croaker, sand seatrout, hardhead catfish, spotted 
seatrout, and bull sharks. Of these, Atlantic croaker 
and sand seatrout were the most commonly occur- 
ring species in the releasable bycatch and were as- 
sociated with being gilled. If a reduction in the mor- 
tality of these species in the menhaden bycatch were 
necessary, our study suggests it would require gear 
modification in the purse seine. A species associated 
with our hot spot, more likely to require attention, is 
the bull shark given its life history characteristics. 
Species-fate associations indicated that bull sharks 
were primarily associated with being released dead. 
If a reduction in the mortality of bull sharks as men- 
haden bycatch were mandated, solutions should be cen- 
tered around reducing the number of sharks released 
dead. Rester (1996) has suggested that this could be 
achieved through modifications to the fish pumping 
equipment for fish 1 meter in length or larger. 
Acknowledgments 
We wish to thank the personnel of Gulf of Mexico 
menhaden industry and members of the Menhaden 
Advisory Committee, Gulf States Marine Fisheries 
Commission, for assistance and advice. We wish to 
thank Donna Rogers, Coastal Fisheries Institute, 
Louisiana State University, for suggestions and re- 
view of the manuscript. We are indebted to James 
Geaghan, Brian Marx, and Raul Macchiavelli, De- 
partment of Experimental Statistics , Louisiana State 
University, for statistical advice and Steven Bran- 
stetter for his review of the manuscript. The manu- 
script greatly benefitted from the comments of an 
unknown reviewer and S.X. Cadrin. 
Data used in these analyses were collected during 
a study on menhaden bycatch funded by the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, MARFIN program (Award 
No. NA47FF0020). 
