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Recognized limitations of fishery‐dependent data under rapidly changing management regimes have resulted in significant effort during recent years to improve the availability of fishery‐independent data in the southeastern United States. These fishery‐independent surveys target numerous species and habitats with various sampling methods, including the use of trawls, longlines, gill nets, traps, and visual surveys. Although passively fished hooked gear (e.g., longlines) are often used to assess the abundance and life history of managed reef fishes, such types of gear are often limited by the habitats they can fish effectively and are species selective. To address these shortcomings, we developed and implemented an actively fished approach to provide fishery‐independent data: the repetitive timed‐drop hooked‐gear method (RTD method). Despite the high degree of standardization applied to the RTD method, important questions remain as to whether active fishing imparts strong angler variability that may reduce the utility of survey data. Accordingly, we analyzed data from 2014 to 2018 to evaluate potential angler bias and how angler‐associated variability compares to other factors often thought to be important predictors of reef fish abundance and community structure. During this study, 962 stations were sampled, representing a variety of artificial and natural reef habitats. In total, 5,770 fish were caught, representing 92 taxa. Sampling was conducted by 103 unique anglers, including 42 commercial or charter fishers and 61 scientists. Results from both population‐ and assemblage‐level analyses found that most of the variability in the catch could be explained by hook size, habitat, water depth, and year. Angler type was rarely correlated with reef fish abundance or assemblages. Our analyses suggest that the RTD method is effective in gathering fishery‐independent abundance and life history data for reef fishes in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and that the resulting data are not strongly biased by an angler effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

White sharks are highly migratory apex predators, globally distributed in temperate, sub-tropical, and tropical waters. Knowledge of white shark biology and ecology has increased recently based on research at known aggregation sites in the Indian, Atlantic, and Northeast Pacific Oceans; however, few data are available for the Northwest Pacific Ocean. This study provides a meta-analysis of 240 observations of white sharks from the Northwest Pacific Ocean between 1951 and 2012. Records comprise reports of bycatch in commercial fisheries, media accounts, personal communications, and documentation of shark-human interactions from Russia (n = 8), Republic of Korea (22), Japan (129), China (32), Taiwan (45), Philippines (1) and Vietnam (3). Observations occurred in all months, excluding October-January in the north (Russia and Republic of Korea) and July-August in the south (China, Taiwan, Philippines, and Vietnam). Population trend analysis indicated that the relative abundance of white sharks in the region has remained relatively stable, but parameterization of a 75% increase in observer effort found evidence of a minor decline since 2002. Reliably measured sharks ranged from 126–602 cm total length (TL) and 16–2530 kg total weight. The largest shark in this study (602 cm TL) represents the largest measured shark on record worldwide. For all countries combined the sex ratio was non-significantly biased towards females (1∶1.1; n = 113). Of 60 females examined, 11 were confirmed pregnant ranging from the beginning stages of pregnancy (egg cases) to near term (140 cm TL embryos). On average, 6.0±2.2 embryos were found per litter (maximum of 10) and gestation period was estimated to be 20 months. These observations confirm that white sharks are present in the Northwest Pacific Ocean year-round. While acknowledging the difficulties of studying little known populations of a naturally low abundance species, these results highlight the need for dedicated research to inform regional conservation and management planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]