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I've just got married and as soon as my honeymoon was over, I headed off to sea – back to the stinky boats! This trip was on a commercial trawler. This vessel was the first vessel I have seen that has stopped routinely discarding fish waste during the setting of the trawl gear, which prevents...
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Our work during the current fishing season has been to focus on supporting the monitoring programme for the swordfish fishery, which the Chilean fisheries investigation institute (IFOP) manages. This monitoring includes sea-trips carried out by scientific observers on 100% of the longline fishing vessels...
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My most recent trip lasted 24 days, many of which we suffered some bad weather. The fishing master was targeting big eye tuna and sharks. As for seabirds, we had 17 species around the vessels as we worked and a single black-browed albatross was hooked during the haul. Lines were set on 11 days during...
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At this time of the year when we go to sea, we get a bit apprehensive because of the changing weather patterns. As it happened, while we were preparing to leave for sea the wind suddenly turned to the south-west. So we had to wait and depart the next day. We went to monitor an 'albatross-friendly...
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I recently returned from my trip on the Astra 1 after 15 days at sea, but we were only able to fish for eight due to poor weather conditions. The target species for this vessel was yellow-fin tuna and during fishing operations we had around 20 species of seabird joining us. Six seabirds were caught on...
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I'm sitting in the port of Coquimbo in Chile, just about to set off for a month aboard a longline vessel. The fishing crew will be looking for swordfish on this trip. We've spent some time on trip preparations. We are going to try using time depth recorders. These small devices, no larger than...
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During the later half of June it was off to sea again on the Irvin & Johnson wet-fish trawler, the Stevia. Once again I was looking at making the tori lines (bird scaring lines) work their best to prevent seabird deaths. Naturally, winter is the season when seabirds are most abundant in our waters...
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The year started with a big decrease in the numbers of longline fishing vessels active in the swordfish fishery in Chile. Currently there are now five vessels at-sea and two industrial freezer ships waiting to leave port. That gives us a total of just seven vessels. As each vessel prepared to leave port...
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We have arrived in the summer months of December and January and typically the pelagic longline vessels stop their activities and the crew take a well-earned rest. This period lasts until the end of February and in some cases extends to mid-March. During this time, I have taken the opportunity to meet...
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I've just returned from a two and a half week trip onboard shark longliner. The shark longline fleet in South Africa is pretty small, only 3-4 vessels, which mainly fish for mako sharks. The gear set up of the vessel is slightly different but the fishing techniques are very similar to the swordfish...
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Fishing concepts... fishing crew develop their own albatross scaring device. Akira sails to the fishing area, and during the journey, I build the tori lines cables (bird scaring lines) together with the crew. They learned a lot, and so did I! The wide experience of these men makes them capable of absorbing...
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Hello seabirds' friends. I am here to tell you the news from Santos/Brazil Port. As the summer is not a good time to observe birds here in Brazil, I have been preparing the vessels to start to test the bird scaring lines (tori lines). This equipment is essential for scaring seabirds while the fishermen...
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Barry and I spend as much time on deck as possible. Our main work is monitoring interactions between seabirds and the two warp cables at the stern. To do this, we sit for hours on end on the 'catwalk', a raised metal gantry above the stern of the boat. Barry's work has shown that it is collisions...
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I have returned finally, from what seemed like a lifetime at sea and on foreign soil. Three trips were conducted on Eros, a hake longliner for Talhado Fisheries, with the help of very committed men on land and at sea. I've now completed seabird fatality data collection on board hake longline vessels...
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Mid-October saw me giving two presentations to skippers and industry representatives about how to prevent albatross deaths in the South African hake trawl fishery. The venue was Cape Town and four fishing companies were represented. Seabirds are attracted to vessels to feed on discards from processed...