Hotspots for porbeagle shark (Lamna nasus) bycatch in the southwestern Atlantic (51°S–57°S)

Abstract

Fisheries bycatch can severely affect the population status of species with low resilience such as sharks. Bycatch monitoring is an important issue for the development of conservation and management plans for these species. The main objectives of this study were to quantify and model the spatiotemporal trend of bycatch for porbeagle shark (Lamna nasus) in the Argentinean surimi trawl fleet to identify hotspots in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Using onboard observer data, we have demonstrated that L. nasus was usually caught as bycatch by the surimi trawl fleet operating in the southern limits of the southwestern Atlantic (51°S–57°S), representing an important part of the reported catch for the Atlantic Ocean. Delta and Tweedie models indicated that bycatch had a relatively stable trend, was concentrated in a limited region of the study area, and was associated with spatiotemporal, operational, environmental, and prey availability variables. The model with the best predictive capability used for the spatial delineation of hotspots for L. nasus bycatch showed that the areas located south of 54°12′S and over the continental shelf-break were critical for the porbeagle conservation and management strategies in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean.