The University of North Carolina Wilmington conducted tests on common commercially available longline hooks to measure the force required to pull the hooks through the soft and hard tissues of short-finned pilot whales, Risso’s dolphins, and false killer whales. The researchers found that the different materials the hooks were made of influenced how they bent or broke when pulled through the odontocete tissue.
William McLellan, University of North Carolina Wilmington Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction Fishing Gear Modifications