At the beginning of 2022, a questionnaire was submitted to 15 fishermen working in the Bucchi di Bunifaziu nature reserve managed by the Corsican Fishing Board (58% of the active fleet in the nature reserve). Their responses were used to determine which fishermen to contact and to target the fish nets for the second stage of the project. Some technical problems with the probe delayed the collection of recordings in 2022. A second probe was received in November 2022. In 2023, 5 fishermen took part and 15 immersions were carried out for around 350 hours of continuous recordings. Two fishermen observed dolphins around their nets during the recordings, with several degraded catches showing marks typical of bottlenose dolphin predation, which augurs well for possible results that could be exploited by the Italian teams. The study will be continued in 2024 thanks to the involvement of small-scale fishermen from the Bucchi di Bunifaziu who are keen to take part in research projects aimed at limiting interactions between fishing nets and Tursiops truncatus (damage to equipment and predation). The monitoring of small-scale coastal and artisanal fishing carried out by scientific observers on board fishing vessels shows that accidental catches are extremely rare for the type of activity practised by the island’s fleet.
Marion Bouet
As an observer on board Corsican small-scale coastal fishing vessels (PPC) since 2018, I currently coordinate, under the supervision of project manager Marie-Catherine Santoni, the monitoring of this activity across Corsica as part of the CF-DCF programme. This fishing campaign is the responsibility of the APMIL (Protected Areas of the Sea, Islands and Coastline) department of the OEC and is funded as part of the DCF partnership led by the DGAMPA (Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture) of the French administration. The aim of this work is to collect reliable scientific data that can be used to support small-scale island fishing and recognise its specific characteristics. Since its establishment in 2017, the CPC monitoring protocol has included a component on observations at sea of cetaceans around fishing vessels, damage to fishing gear and fish catches caused by interactions with cetaceans, in particular bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus. This protocol is based on the long experience of the RNBB (Bocca di Bonifacio Nature Reserve) in this field. CF-DCF observers are trained to recognise species and signs of interaction (typical tears in nets or fish).
As the person responsible for monitoring commercial fishing within the ‘Scientific Monitoring’ department, I am in charge of the ‘field’ part of the Tursionet project, liaising with the fishermen of the Bonifacio prud’homie and retrieving the data collected by the recorder.