Report on Turtle Distribution and Commercial Shrimp Trawling: A Descriptive Analysis Stratified by Relative Water Depth

摘要

An examination of the distributions of turtles and commercial shrimp trawling effort was completed using Southeast Fisheries center data bases. The purpose the investigation was to determine if turtle and effort distributions could be spatially stratified by depth. To accomplish this task, various turtle data bases from the Galveston, Pascagoula, and Miami Laboratories were evaluated. Shrimp trawling effort was derived from the Galveston Laboratory. Data accompanied by location were applied in this analysis and distributions of both turtles and effort plotted. Depth contours of 15 and 30 fathoms were defined from NOAA nautical charts. The 15 fathom isobath is approximately equivalent to 27m in surface to bottom depth.