Pilcher Nicolas J, Adulyanukosol Kanjana, Das Himansu, Davis Patricia, Hines Ellen, Kwan Donna, Marsh Helene, Ponnampalam Louisa, Reynolds John
Marine Research Foundation, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
Upper Gulf of Thailand Marine and Coastal Resource Research and Development Center, Samut Sakhon, Thailand.
PLoS One. 2017 Dec 28;12(12):e0190021. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190021. eCollection 2017.
Fisheries bycatch is a widespread and serious issue that leads to declines of many important and threatened marine species. However, documenting the distribution, abundance, population trends and threats to sparse populations of marine species is often beyond the capacity of developing countries because such work is complex, time consuming and often extremely expensive. We have developed a flexible tool to document spatial distribution and population trends for dugongs and other marine species in the form of an interview questionnaire supported by a structured data upload sheet and a comprehensive project manual. Recognising the effort invested in getting interviewers to remote locations, the questionnaire is comprehensive, but low cost. The questionnaire has already been deployed in 18 countries across the Indo-Pacific region. Project teams spent an average of USD 5,000 per country and obtained large data sets on dugong distribution, trends, catch and bycatch, and threat overlaps. Findings indicated that >50% of respondents had never seen dugongs and that 20% had seen a single dugong in their lifetimes despite living and fishing in areas of known or suspected dugong habitat, suggesting that dugongs occurred in low numbers. Only 3% of respondents had seen mother and calf pairs, indicative of low reproductive output. Dugong hunting was still common in several countries. Gillnets and hook and line were the most common fishing gears, with the greatest mortality caused by gillnets. The questionnaire has also been used to study manatees in the Caribbean, coastal cetaceans along the eastern Gulf of Thailand and western Peninsular Malaysia, and river dolphins in Peru. This questionnaire is a powerful tool for studying distribution and relative abundance for marine species and fishery pressures, and determining potential conservation hotspot areas. We provide the questionnaire and supporting documents for open-access use by the scientific and conservation communities.
渔业兼捕是一个广泛且严重的问题，导致许多重要且濒危的海洋物种数量减少。然而，记录海洋物种稀少种群的分布、数量、种群趋势和面临的威胁，对发展中国家而言往往力所不及，因为此类工作复杂、耗时且通常成本极高。我们开发了一种灵活的工具，以访谈问卷的形式记录儒艮及其他海洋物种的空间分布和种群趋势，该问卷辅以结构化数据上传表和一份全面的项目手册。考虑到让访谈人员前往偏远地区所付出的努力，问卷内容全面但成本较低。该问卷已在印太地区的18个国家使用。项目团队每个国家平均花费5000美元，获得了关于儒艮分布、趋势、渔获量和兼捕情况以及威胁重叠的大量数据集。研究结果表明，超过50%的受访者从未见过儒艮，20%的受访者一生中仅见过一只儒艮，尽管他们生活和捕鱼的区域是已知或疑似有儒艮栖息的地方，这表明儒艮数量稀少。只有3%的受访者见过母兽和幼崽，这表明繁殖产出较低。儒艮捕猎在几个国家仍然很常见。刺网和钩线是最常见的捕鱼工具，刺网造成的死亡率最高。该问卷还被用于研究加勒比海的海牛、泰国湾东部和马来西亚半岛西部沿海的鲸类以及秘鲁的河豚。这份问卷是研究海洋物种分布和相对丰度、渔业压力以及确定潜在保护热点地区的有力工具。我们提供问卷及相关支持文件，供科学界和保护界免费使用。
