Scientist’s Report 06.27.23

Ship: Seahorse

Name: Laura Sánchez & Núria Patiño

Date: 27/06/23

Ship’s Activity: Monitoring

Table 1. Small boat counting was done during the 27^th of June from 00:00 to 10:00 and from 14:00 to 21:00 with radar observations. The hours not represented in this table correspond to hours when no pangas were seen in the ZTA or outside.

Total number of different small fishing boats fishing today in the ZTA: 0.

Total number of different small fishing boats fishing today in the ZTA Buffer Zone: 0.

During the first hours of the night the same small boats from yesterday were in the southwest area. By mid-morning there were already 12 diver vessels in the center of the ZTA, which stayed until after 14:00.

At approximately 10:30 a Navy vessel Interceptor came to help us retrieve what we thought could be a ghost net in the north-central border inside the ZTA. Some of our crew went on the Interceptor together with a federal fisheries inspector and tried several times to hook the net. We managed to hook it and an hour and fifteen minutes later all the ghost net was out of the water. We transferred it to the deck of the Seahorse where we released all the animals, the numbers of which are in Table 2, and measured it: it was a 560 meters chano (small corvina) net.

For the rest of the afternoon there was only one small boat in the west area outside the ZTA, and at 21:00 many small boats started to gather in the southwest area. We headed to Puerto Peñasco shortly after for a crew change.

Figure 1. Small fishing boat activity in the ZTA today 27^th of June.

Figure 2. Radar screenshot at 8:00.

Figure 3. The Navy and Sea Shepherd crew pulling the net from the Navy interceptor.

Figure 4. Photo of the ghost net on board the deck of the Seahorse.

Table 2. Number of animals found entangled in the ghost net, separated by group and if they were found dead or alive. Note that there was probably more sea life that fell from the net while retrieving it and could not be noted.