Abstract

A total of 139 types of passive fishing gear are used in Chinese marine fisheries. Finless porpoises, false killer whales, bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins are known to be caught incidentally in the fisheries. Finless porpoises are probably killed in considerable numbers; recorded incidental catches suggest that dozens or perhaps hundreds have been caught annually in gillnets, drifting trammels, stow nets and pound nets along the coast of Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Fujian Provinces. Individuals of the Yangtze River finless porpoise population are caught incidentally in rolling hook longlines and encircling gillnets. Attention has been focused on the kill of the baiji, Lipotes vexillifer, by rolling hook longlines and fyke nets in the same river. The rolling hook longlines have accounted for 53% and 23% of the known deaths of the dolphin in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, respectively, and fyke nets accounted for 16% of the deaths in the lower Yangtze.