Manfrini, V.; Fortuna, C.M.; Cocumelli, C. First Record of Cetacean Killed in an Artisanal Fish Aggregating Device in the Mediterranean Sea. Animals2023, 13, 2524.
Manfrini, V.; Fortuna, C.M.; Cocumelli, C. First Record of Cetacean Killed in an Artisanal Fish Aggregating Device in the Mediterranean Sea. Animals 2023, 13, 2524.
Manfrini, V.; Fortuna, C.M.; Cocumelli, C. First Record of Cetacean Killed in an Artisanal Fish Aggregating Device in the Mediterranean Sea. Animals2023, 13, 2524.
Manfrini, V.; Fortuna, C.M.; Cocumelli, C. First Record of Cetacean Killed in an Artisanal Fish Aggregating Device in the Mediterranean Sea. Animals 2023, 13, 2524.
Abstract
Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) are anchored floating structures often made with cheap scrapped materials and used to aggregate pelagic fish under their artificial shadow. Globally, the dangerous impact of FADs has well known. They pose a severe threat due to known and unknown levels of bycatch, the danger to navigation, and their high potential to become marine litter. Entanglement and consequent mortality in FADs of protected species and species of conservation concern (e.g., sharks, sea turtles, and cetaceans) are a serious concern for several international inter-governmental bodies (e.g., EU, GFCM, and IWC). This work describes the first case of a cetacean, a striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba), killed by a FAD in the Mediterranean Sea. This dolphin was found stranded along the coast of the central Tyrrhenian Sea. The evidence suggests that this specimen suffered a painful death. Although this is the first confirmed case of a cetacean killed by a FAD in Italian waters, given the extent of the deployment of FADs, the scale of this type of interaction with protected species might be seriously underestimated. Therefore, actions and monitoring need to be implemented urgently to effectively protect and conserve marine biodiversity.
Keywords
FAD; bycatch; striped dolphin; Mediterranean Sea; Italian seas.
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Other
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
