Estimation of Bycatch with Seabirds, Sea Turtles, Bony Fish, Sharks, and Rays in the 2024 Permitted American Sāmoa Longline Fishery

The attached Excel Workbook (pir.asll.2024.xlsx) includes annual bycatch estimates for 2024. The workbook includes a worksheet labeled “key” that provides definitions of the column headings and the variables being estimated. McCracken (2019) describes the sampling of the American Sāmoa longline fleet, estimators of bycatch, and the caveats of the sampling and estimators. For the bycatch estimates, a simple random sample without replacement was assumed and the standard sample-based estimator was used to estimate total bycatch; see Lohr (2010) for more detail. The bycatch of marine mammals will be reported in a separate document.