Summer has arrived and with it the departure of many of our foraging albatrosses and petrels to their breeding islands in the southern Oceans around New Zealand, the storm-ravaged islands in the Roaring 40’s and South Georgia. These birds have been replaced by several species of seabirds that have...
We’ve had very exciting and excellent weather in Walvis Bay this month with dominant south-westerly winds creating ideal conditions for a variety of water-sports and the flocking of birds into the lagoon. Namibia has a closed season in the hake fishery every October with the primary aim of protecting...
At the end of September, I was invited by Rossing Uranium Limited, a large uranium mine that is owned by Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ), to present a talk to a group of secondary school students. They were taking part in the Rossing Bird Day. RTZ conducts this Birdlife partnered activity annually as part of their...
By deploying bird scaring lines (tori lines) from trawl vessels, seabirds are prevented from colliding dangerously, and often fatally with the trawl cables. To assess the performance of the tori lines in the Namibian fishery we are carrying out trials onboard commercial vessels and demonstrating their...
The big news from Namibia is that we have now begun our research project, and flown the first ever bird-scaring tori lines on a trawler in Namibia. This honour fell to the MFV Fisherbank belonging to Hangana, a Namibian company that has been very supportive of our work. The crew were fantastic, and really...
After the trip to Namibia in October where we learnt from interviewing skippers that seabird bycatch may be a problem, we decided to head back and continue what we had started. Now it was time to go to sea and see what really happens there. I spent four weeks in the town of Luderitz in southern Namibia...