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Killer whale (Orcinus orca) depredation on longline groundfish fisheries in the northwestern Pacific

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Abstract

The killer whale (Orcinus orca) behavior termed “depredation” is a major issue negatively affecting fisheries worldwide. Information on killer whale depredation in the northwestern Pacific Ocean is limited. The goal of this work was to assess the extent of killer whale depredation on the groundfish fisheries in the western Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. Observations of killer whale depredation were conducted on 8 of the 42 (19%) longline fishing vessels between October 2018 and September 2019. Killer whales depredated during 2.0% of vessel days in the western Bering Sea and 18.6% of vessel days in the Sea of Okhotsk, taking exclusively Greenland turbot (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides). Seventy-one killer whales were identified depredating on longlines in the Sea of Okhotsk, with the best estimation for the total number of killer whales depredating about 139 individuals. Results suggest that killer whale depredation is an issue for Greenland turbot longline fisheries in the northwestern Pacific. There is a strong need for mitigation measures, as this has an economic impact on the fisheries and also affects the killer whale population and associated ecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful to the Longline Fishery Association and to all the fishing companies’ members of the Association for financing the project. Special thanks go to the fishing companies that allowed observers on board and helped with killer whale data collection. Authors are very grateful to researchers of the Kamchatka branch of VNIRO, especially Dr. Aleksandr Varkentin, for organizing fieldwork and valuable comments and Dr. Sergey Kornev for administrative assistance. Authors would like to thank the manuscript referees Dr. Olga Filatova, Dr. Randall Davis, and the unknown referees for their valuable comments and corrections to the manuscript. We would like to thank Dr. Randall Davis, Rodney Russ, Antonina Shashkova, and Heidi Dohn for proofreading the manuscript. Also, we would like to thank Dr. Dieter Piepenburg the Editor-in-Chief for his comments, corrections, and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kamchatka Branch of FSBNU “VNIRO” (“KamchatNIRO”), st. Naberezhnaya, 18, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia, 683000

    O. A. Belonovich, S. V. Agafonov, A. A. Matveev & A. A. Kalugin

  2. Commander Islands Nature and Biosphere Reserve, 50 let Oktyabrya, 31, Nikolskoe, Russia, 684500

    O. A. Belonovich

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  1. O. A. Belonovich
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  2. S. V. Agafonov
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  3. A. A. Matveev
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  4. A. A. Kalugin
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Contributions

B.O. designed research, did the data analyses, and wrote the manuscript. M.A. wrote the first draft about fisheries. B.O., A.S., M.A., and K.A. conducted the fieldwork. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to O. A. Belonovich.

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Belonovich, O.A., Agafonov, S.V., Matveev, A.A. et al. Killer whale (Orcinus orca) depredation on longline groundfish fisheries in the northwestern Pacific. Polar Biol 44, 2235–2242 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02948-8

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