Report of the Working Group on Fishery Interactions

Abstract

Mortality of franciscana in fishing operations has been observed for almost sixty years. Reports on by-catch in shark gillnet fisheries off Uruguay date back to the early forties (Van Erp, 1969). Although gillneting in Argentina and southern Brazil also emerged in the forties as a consequence of Second World War demands for cheap protein and vitamins (De Buen, 1950, 1952; Popovici and Angelescu, 1954; Crespo et al., 1994; Haimovici et al., 1997), no record of by-catch exists for those areas. Gillnet fisheries for bottomdwelling fish became the major conservation concern for franciscana in both countries only in the eighties. Nowadays, by-catch has been reported from all main fishing villages along most of the species geographical distribution (e.g. Corcuera, 1994; Praderi, 1997; Secchi et al., 1997; Zanelatto, 1997; Di Beneditto et al., 1998; Ott, 1998). Gillnet fishing characteristics are summarized in Table 1. By-catch estimates for each of the proposed Franciscana Management Area (FMA) (see Report of the Working Group on Stock Identity) are shown in Figure 1.