Western & Central Pacific Ocean – Cape Finisterre
This is the #BycatchProject’s first cruise in this region, which supports the largest tuna fishing grounds in the world. A 5 person research team is working alongside a crew on techniques and studies that expand upon the work conducted on all previous cruises. The team will spend a total of 45 days at sea.

Indian Ocean - Torre Giulia Completed
The Torre Giulia spent 6 weeks in the Indian Ocean with 3 research scientists onboard. The team worked alongside the vessel’s crew, developing an underwater census to determine the species composition and abundance of species under FADs, studying the natural behavior of fish around FADs, and testing techniques to attract sharks and other bycatch away from FADs.

Eastern Pacific Ocean – Simoun Completed
A regular fishing trip off the coast of South America hosted a researcher to study the behavior and survival of sharks encountered during tuna fishing operations.

Eastern Pacific Ocean – Yolanda L Completed
An 80-day research cruise was completed in the EPO by Kurt Schaefer (IATTC, chief scientist), Dan Fuller (IATTC) and Corey Eddy (University of Massachusetts). The cruise mainly addressed solutions to avoid catching small bigeye tuna around FADs, one of the main issues in this ocean, but also studied the survival of sharks released by a purse seine vessel.

Indian Ocean – 11 Day Cruise Completed
A two week cruise was conducted in the Indian Ocean to study the behavior of sharks and other fish species swimming around fish aggregating devices, despite piracy threats.