We have started our work as Albatross Task Force Members in Brazil! We (Fabiano and me) are proud that we belong to this world team that will raise awareness about the implementation of measures to avoid the accidental catch of seabirds in the Brazilian waters. This is great!
On our first day of contact with fishermen, still on land we met the AKIRA V fishing vessel Captain Celso, and its Japanese ship owner, also named Akira. This was a remarkable day because only rarely do these two ever meet!
As they arrived at Santos, we saw them unloading the tuna fish and we took the opportunity to give them all brochures from the Save the albatross campaign and other educational brochures from our Projeto Albatroz work.
Inside the vessel, we talked with Capitan Celso. He is an extremely communicative, friendly guy and it is apparent that he not only can be a friend in the near future, but can also help us contacting other captains to pass our message.
I was impressed with this guy and thought we could implement the tori lines approach on his vessel easily. However, I soon realised it may not be as easy as I thought, because he didn't like talking about the subject.
As we were talking about measures, another ship owner, Toki San, got into the conversation saying that this was a rubbish campaign and that killer whales should be all killed because they were destroying all the fish stock.
My hopes for Celso fell when he agreed immediately with Toki San, reinforcing the idea that all killer whales should be killed.
I continued, however, reinforcing the conversation about the importance of the implementation of tori lines and the necessary measures for every vessel to adopt this technique. Again and again, he simply didn't care.
I did not give up with his negative replies and instead of talking, I started to watch him closely and noticed that whenever he was talking with Akira, he seemed slightly afraid and was shy and timid with his boss. From that moment, I knew that if I talked with Akira I could, indirectly, talk with Celso and that was exactly what I did.
While I was watching Akira, a trendy ship owner with fashionable, spiky hair, I took a moment when he was alone and approached him and asked if he wanted his ship to appear in a documentary from an international TV station (due to come here in the end of October).
I told him that a crew from this TV station would come to record for a video about the campaign, if he would allow them on board his ship. I also told him this could be a great opportunity for his business to grow, as everyone in the world could see his boat on television.
As soon as I said this, he suddenly became very interested. However, I emphasised: 'Well, this can only happen if you implement tori lines on your vessels and tell Celso to implement our measures'.
Immediately, he ran to Celso and gave him the order: 'Celso, from now put on the tori lines in the ship... we are going to be on TV!'
Late August and early September saw me on the Godetia, owned by Irvin and Johnson: a 56-metre wet-fish trawler.
The objective of this cruise was to compare how seabirds interacted with and without flying a tori line whilst offal was discarded.
The number of different types of birds around was low, but an old friend of mine, the wandering albatross, turned up towards the end of the cruise.
The tori line proved to be very effective. Hardly any birds were killed when the vessel retained all the leftover offal which would be used for fishmeal later.
Sitting at the stern on the gantry or 'catwalk' offers great views of the birds and we had several days of Force 6 and 7 winds with winds gusting Force 8 one afternoon.
That afternoon, feeling a little exposed, I climbed down and headed for a hot coffee. Not long after, I was in 96km/h winds outside Van Reenen, a village in northern Natal. I saw a first for me, a bird called a yellow-chested pipit - what we in the birding world call a 'lifer'!
The reason we were inland was to attend our annual staff meeting held at a hotel formerly commandeered by the British during the Anglo-Boer war. I gave a presentation on my trawl work and 'networked' round the pool table and dart board. The war may well have long been over, but peace was broken that September weekend!
On 14 August, I drove from Cape Town to Mossel Bay (a small port on our eastern Cape coast) through storm-ravaged countryside to join an inshore hake trawl vessel.
The following morning, Rowan the skipper welcomed me onboard his 15-metre, 48-tonne vessel with a crew of eight. I had a few trepidations looking at the small vessel, with more foul weather on the way. My bunk was at the back of the wheelhouse and we had no shower!
The rationale behind the trip was to trial the effectiveness of tori lines and their practicality on these smaller vessels. Setting and hauling is a much quicker process compared to the larger 50-metre trawlers I am more accustomed to, as we were fishing in 80-metre water depth.
140 white-chinned petrels and 80 shy albatrosses were foraging close to the stern on offal discards. None came close when the tori was deployed and it was a great opportunity to explain to the crew why tori lines became part of our permit conditions as of July 1 this year.
The crew were surprised to hear that birds like white-chinned petrels breed underground and, of course, the first question every fisherman asks me is 'what do they eat?'
The food - ours, that is - was outstanding, considering that the kitchen was in the order of one by two metres. Housewives, never complain about your kitchen again!
After four days, a cold front was on its way. However, I missed the 'lumpy seas' as I jumped off at Mossel Bay, when we took an injured crew member back to port.
Hake feed at night close to the surface and return to the bottom in the morning. As a result, lines are set in the early morning.
As in the tuna longlining, the birds are getting caught while trying to seize the baits during the setting of the line, but also getting caught on hooks while feeding on offal next to the boat, as thousands of hooks are hauled back to the vessel at great speed (about one hook every two seconds). These vessels set in the region of 10,000 hooks per day!
In order to prevent the birds from hanging around the hauling stations, where too many hooks are threatening them, the vessels must discard the offal on the other side of the boat and so distract the birds away from the hooks.
Boarding the vessel, I was welcomed by a warm crew and a nice surprise - one of our own tori lines was neatly packed, ready to be used.
I was happy to see that the working deck (where the fish and baits are processed) was enclosed; this way, the birds might be less attracted to the boat.
The trip went very well... we had rough seas most of the time, with winds reaching to 40 knots, and quite a few birds around, dominated by white-chinned petrels. Thanks to the fact that the offal is discarded on the other side, the closed deck and use of the tori line, we came back from the trip with zero dead birds, which is always good.
I want to thank Johny, Robert and Shane who helped me with the line sinking experiments and Captain Fareiro for a lovely trip.
As the co-ordinator of the Projeto Albatroz seabird observation programme, it was with great honour that I accepted a role as an Albatross Task Force Member and to work towards saving seabirds in Brazilian waters.
On Monday (11 September), my first AFT Field Instructor activities began. With the arrival of the other Taskforce member, António Miguel Miguéis, a plan of action was drawn to give him all the information, guidelines and methodology to follow developed by Projeto Albatroz.
It was a great surprise to see the vessel AKIRA V in the harbour. I had previously been onboard this vessel so I presented Miguel to the Captain and to the ship owner. Strategically, I let Miguel interact with the crew to determine his spontaneity.
Captain Celso has great knowledge of Projeto Albatroz's actions and work. I talked with him about the possibility of introducing tori lines on his vessel. He said that he didn't need to adopt the tori line because he usually fishes with another fishing technique, with the line in hand.
Talking with other members of the fleet, however, I could notice that Celso also uses the longline and that he in fact had used it and also captured one spectacled petrel in his last cruise.
Talking with Miguel, we drew up a strategy to convince the owner of the boat to adopt the tori line instead of the Capitan. We noticed that Celso didn't have any decision powers without the permission of the ship owner. In the end, Miguel finally did it!
He convinced the ship owner to start using tori lines in all his vessels and this was great achievement in our very first day of work!
By the end of the day, all the fleet came to visit the Projeto Albatroz headquarters, specifically the Fishermen's Room which we can use to pass our message to them on how to use mitigation measures to save seabirds during fisheries. I showed them a variety of photos and videos of the reality of the fate of many seabirds.