Longlines

Longline fishing is a commercial fishing technique that uses thousands of baited hooks hanging from a single line, often miles long. Swordfish, tuna, mackerel and sharks are commonly targeted by these fisheries. Longlines can be set to hang at varying depths depending on the targeted species.

Not only are sharks sometimes targeted by longlines, they are also caught as bycatch in this gear. Longlines catch a large amount of bycatch because the baited hooks provide an easy meal for any indiscriminant predator, including sharks.

Longlines are often set in the water for extended periods of time. By the time they are removed from the water, the hooked sharks are often dead. Because the disentanglement of live sharks from fishing line and the removal of hooks is time-consuming and dangerou, most sharks are released with hook and some fishing line still attached, if they are released alive at all.