Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Marine Pollution Bulletin journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul Baseline Impacts of the traditional baited basket fishing trap “gargoor” on green sea turtles Chelonia mydas (Testudines: Cheloniidae) Linnaeus, 1758 from two case reports in the United Arab Emirates Fadi Yaghmour a, ⁎ , Marwa Al Bousi a , Brendan Whittington-Jones b , John Pereira b , Soledad García-Nuñez c , Jane Budd c a Hefaiyah Mountain Conservation Centre (Scientific Research Department), Environment and Protected Areas Authority, Kalba, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates b Sharjah Desert Park (Scientific Research Department), Environment and Protected Areas Authority, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates c Breeding Centre of Endangered Arabian Wildlife, Environment and Protected Areas Authority, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Marine debris Entanglement Bycatch Gargoor Gargour Green sea turtle ABSTRACT The United Arab Emirates fisheries consist of highly diverse fish communities, and the most popular equipment used by fishermen to harvest them is a traditional baited basket fishing trap known locally as “gargoor”. Gargoors are dome-shaped traps made from galvanized steel; they have a circular supporting base and a funnel- like entrance. Unintended impacts of gargoors on marine fauna include bycatch of non-target species and, when lost, ghost fishing. However, there is very little information on sea turtle interaction with gargoors. In this paper we present two case reports from the eastern coast of the UAE of green sea turtle strandings associated with gargoor interactions. The first case report describes a turtle that was discovered trapped inside a lost or aban- doned gargoor. The second case report describes another turtle that suffered from extensive perforation of the gastrointestinal tract resulting from the ingestion of 32 pieces of rusty gargoor fragments. The fisheries of the United Arab Emirates comprise a wide variety of fish of vast taxonomic guilds and the local fishermen utilize a variety of methods and equipment to harvest them. Amongst the most popular fishing equipment used in the region is a baited basket fishing trap known locally as gargoor (Tharwat and Al-Gaber, 2006; EAD, 2014). These are hemispherical dome-shaped traps with a circular supporting base and a funnel-like entrance with some models having a back door for the collection of captured fish (see Fig. 1)(Weizhong et al., 2012; Al-Abdulrazzak and Pauly, 2013). Gargoors are deployed from artisanal fishing boats or larger dhows around rocky and coral reefs, and most frequently baited with fresh or dried fish, shrimp, bread or sometimes green microalgae (Carpenter et al., 1997). The gargoor was tradition- ally made by weaving fronds from local date palms Phoenix dactylifera, however, nowadays the gargoor is made from galvanized steel (Beech et al., 2005; Grandcourt et al., 2008). They are popular amongst fish- ermen in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (Carpenter et al., 1997). Gargoors are either deployed individually or in combinations of up to four traps in depths between 10 and 35 m (Weizhong et al., 2012). Traps deployed in combinations are tethered along a line with the in- dividual gargoors arranged at a distance approximately 40 m to 60 m apart (Weizhong et al., 2012; Jawad, 2006). The distance between different gargoor groups or individuals depends on the bathymetry, substrate topography and the projected catch amount (Weizhong et al., 2012). The number of traps deployed is 50 to 600 gargoors and is de- pendent on the boats' capacity for carrying assembled gargoors (Weizhong et al., 2012). Target fish species include groupers, emperors, jacks, seabreams, parrotfish, sweetlips and snappers (Musaiger, 1988; Carpenter et al., 1997). Unfortunately, as do most fishing equipment and methods, the gargoor has several unintended environmental drawbacks. These include, but are not limited to, ghost fishing by dis- carded or abandoned fishing equipment that results in persistent mor- tality of target and non-target species for the lifespan of the equipment. In a study conducted in Muscat, Oman, it was found that ghost fishing mortality by abandoned gargoors was estimated at 1.34 kg of fish per trap per day with fish mortality rate decreasing as time passes (Al- Masroori et al., 2004). An exponential model estimated trap lost for six months can result in a mortality of approximately 78.36 kg of fish per trap (Al-Masroori et al., 2004). With respect to non-target species such as sea turtles however, there is very little known about their interac- tions with gargoors. Green sea turtles Chelonia mydas Linnaeus, 1758 are one of only https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.07.059 Received 29 April 2018; Received in revised form 8 July 2018; Accepted 21 July 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: fadi.mohd@epaa.shj.ae (F. Yaghmour). Marine Pollution Bulletin 135 (2018) 521–524 0025-326X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T