These are the tuna, the billfish and the sharks.

Longlines are also one of the main threats to the survival of sharks and billfish.

Recent studies have documented the rapid decline of large predatory fish species such as billfish, sharks and tuna.

Industrial longline fishing damages not only stocks of billfish, it also impacts existing and potential ecotourism revenues based on healthy marine ecosystems.

(d) Short , medium and long term ecosystem management mechanisms to address and prevent the decline and extinction of associated species, including fish, billfish, sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals

Targeting highly migratory predatory fish species including tuna and swordfish, industrial longlines also catch or kill as many as 4.4 million sea turtles, billfish, sharks, marine mammals and seabirds.

Sportfishers, divers, and other humans who live and work with billfish, sea turtles, seabirds, marine mammals and other species caught as bycatch are harmed directly, often with direct economic consequences.

Ovetz, R., Pillaging the Pacific Pelagic Longline Fishing Captures or Kills About 4.4 Million Sharks, Billfish, Seabirds, Sea Turtles, and Marine Mammals Each Year in the Pacific Ocean, a report by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, November 16, 2004.

Additional recent scientific studies have identified industrial longlining as the cause of the decline in the population of large pelagic fish species including billfish, sharks and tuna by as much as 87 99 percent in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic since the 1950s.

Of the 32 demersal, pelagic and shellfish fisheries studied, the Central Pacific swordfish tuna longline fishery had the fourth highest fuel use intensity (liters of fuel per ton of catch), and the tuna billfish longline fishery had the highest exceeding even that of shrimp trawling, the second highest.