Longline Fishing

Imagine that you are sitting underneath an apple tree. You reach up to grab one of the shiny red globes hovering above your head. As your fingers close around the suspended fruit, a razor metal hook pierces through your skin, pulling you off the ground, so that your feet no longer touch it. Picture hanging there as every nerve transmitter in your body registers pain. Even though your life depends on how hard you fight back, every time you pull away, the hook embeds itself deeper into the palm of your bloody hand. If you’re still conscious by the time you’re pulled up high above the orchard, you’d see that it stretches further than the eye can see. It’s only one apple tree wide, but there are enough trees to stretch out over a distance of 100,000 miles. And for every tree planted, is another one of your relations, hanging by a hook through their hand, dead after hours of trying to stay alive…

Usually set in migration corridors for tuna and swordfish, longlines, made of monofilament line, stretch across the surface of the ocean at an average length of between thirty and fifty miles. Baited hooks are attached at regular increments, weighed down by a second fishing line submerged at a distance of 15 to 1,200 feet, so as to space out thousands of hooks over a great distance. The hooks are as indiscriminate as a nuclear warhead; for every “target fish” caught, a countless number of “incidental” or “non-target” creatures are killed. In fact, approximately two-hundred million tons of marine life are discarded every year by the global fisheries, marked as “bycatch”, collateral damage that threatens the survival of hundreds of species of birds, marine mammals, and turtles. Even though all of the world’s seven sea turtle species are in danger of extinction, at least 40,000 turtles, comprised mostly of loggerhead and leatherback turtles are killed annually by longlines. Mostly due to longlining fishing methods, the leatherback turtle, a “critically endangered” reptile that has can weigh up to 2,000 pounds and reach up to nine feet in length, is facing extinction within as little as five years.

While, the Untied National Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recommended the use of “circle hooks”, which may reduce the number of sea turtles killed between 50 and 60 percent, it is the opinion of TDI that the only chance that sea turtle species have for survival lies in a worldwide ban of longline fishing. When “critically endangered” species are killed by the thousands in the hunt for swordfish, tuna, and Patagonian toothfish, there is no more room for compromise.

See TDI's Most Wanted List - a few of the companies responsible for thousands of turtle deaths each year

TDI is currently establishing a database of fishing companies, trading companies, and fishing gear and supplies operations that are slaughtering thousands of sea turtles due to their demand for swordfish, tuna, and Patagonian toothfish.