At the moment I am in between two trips.
I have just spent a week in the wonderful town of Walvis Bay, Namibia.
Walvis Bay holds the biggest fleet of hake longliners in Namibia, along with a large number of trawlers and open-sea long-liners operating from there. Namibia has adopted a National Plan of Action to reduce seabird deaths and therefore is obliged to work on this subject.
Unfortunately, we have very little data on the subject from our northern neighbour and so I found myself running around in the harbour, looking for skippers to interview.
A very important part of our work is meeting and interviewing skippers. This gives us insight into their world and opinions on the issue. It also gives us an idea on what is happening out there at sea and a chance to teach them ways to reduce bird mortality.
I received a warm welcome and met 13 skippers and some other fishing company managers. They all happily agreed to be interviewed and helped me so much in trying to get an idea on the seabird deaths in Namibian waters.
A very important objective of this trip was to try to arrange a trip to sea with one of the longliners and as it seems I am going to go back to that wonderful country on the first week of November.
This time I'm going to Luderitz, in south Namibia. I will be going with the Spencer, a hake longliner, hopefully for a few trips in order to collect data and see with my own eyes what is going on there and come back with a better understanding.
It's time to rock and find out how well we're doing. I am preparing to go onboard the very first Brazilian Albatross Task Force research vessel.
The vessel is a normal fishing vessel with all its fishermen. However, it has also been booked by us to test their mitigation measures - both the tori lines (bird-scaring devices) and the blue baits (which make bait less visible to albatrosses). It's going to be fun!
The ship is allowed about 30 days at sea and about 10 fishermen will be with me in this mission. On 10 October, we set off from the Santos harbour and did a brief stop at the Itajai port to get some repair work done.
Then we set off for the high sea. While at sea, we did two sets of experiments in the location 44° 00 S and 31° 00 W. During the fishing operation, I saw various young wandering albatrosses. No birds were caught during the experiments.
All was going just well, when suddenly the boat generator broke down... we had to get back to Itajai again where I am just now waiting until the repairs get done.
But according to Captain Sandro, tomorrow we are able to go again to sea, probably to the great elevation of Rio Grande and to the Hunter Channel. These areas are great places to watch the third major species in risk of extinction, the Tristan albatross. They are great oceanographic places!
During the journey of the boat to the elevation, there is a depth of about 4,000 metres and a submarine mountain of about 300 m deep. It's going to be the third time I am going to this area and I hope to see these and other birds flying.
I will tell you more when I get back!
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 for the east coast of South Africa until next year (during a different season).
The last month has been a great accomplishment for the Albatross Task Force!
On arriving in Port Elizabeth, from which 10 vessels operate, I was fortunate enough to meet with eight skippers and their right-hand men on their vessels to discuss the threats seabirds face as result of deep-water longline fishing in our waters.
I felt a general air of: 'why are you targeting us skippers, when we hardly catch any birds?'
This has quickly transformed into: 'it's great to work directly with researchers so that our at-sea knowledge is taken into consideration when making management decisions', and: 'oh, I suppose that if the individual accidental albatross death numbers are multiplied across the entire fleet, then this would cause a major decline'.
(I was incapable of describing it in fewer words.)
I have issued tori lines (bird-scaring devices) to each of these vessels and given on-board instruction to each of these vessels on how to deploy them!
So, when a relationship was established, it wasn't even necessary for me to go out on each and every vessel, with each and every skipper. In fact, all I had to do was contact skippers at sea and meet with them personally during and between trips, asking them how their tori lines were functioning.
Actually, within the first week, some skippers were constructing booms on their vessels so that their tori lines could achieve maximum aerial coverage while being towed. All I can say is that the network of communication was strong and committed.
In my time at sea, I was able to confirm that these vessels were indeed using their tori lines, and reported that they worked well!
One bird (white-chinned petrel) was caught during the three trips I conducted, which is low for the east coast, but not a true reflection for the whole year because seabird abundance is higher in winter (May to August). Further trips will have to be completed next year during the winter period.
On a personal front, the sea conditions were optimal, calm with fresh south-easters making their appearances very infrequently. The food was also optimal by the third trip, after I had realised that I had gained one too many kilos after the first two trips, from fried meals.
Thus, I requested certain luxuries (fresh fruit and veggies), and thankfully I could shower at least once during each week at sea.
The difference between working with fishermen here than, say (and I stand corrected), regions such as the Spanish Mediterranean, is the level of multi-ethnicity.
The ATF in South Africa is not dealing with only English-speaking fishermen, but in fact Angolan, Namibian, Portuguese, Afrikaans and English-speaking South African people, and these nationalities constitute the domestic fleets.
I have had to revive my Afrikaans, and still learn a little Portuguese and even Ovambo [a Namibian language]. Additionally, the cultural sensitivity of each is so variable. It's been a social challenge, but very exciting.
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 hake and by-catch. The vast majority of mortalities that take place in trawl fisheries here and in other southern hemisphere waters happen when large-winged birds such as the 'mollymawks' become entangled with the trawl warps (steel wire ropes) and are dragged underwater and drown.
To help reduce these mortalities, tori lines (bird-scaring lines) became a permit condition in my country on 1 July this year. Other means of mitigation have been trialled on our vessels but it has been shown that tori lines reduce mortalities up to 90%; they are also inexpensive and easy to deploy.
Of course, it is all very well having permit conditions stating tori lines to be flown for each and every drag, but inspection vessels cannot monitor each and every vessel.
So I asked the fishermen before me: 'Do you think compliance is higher than 40%?'. I thought I was about to get lynched. They replied to a man: 'Of course it is much higher than that; we are watching each other and very few vessels are not complying'.
'What would be your reaction if a vessel not genuinely flying a tori line was escorted back to port and tied up for two days?' I asked.
'No problem' came the reply (these guys are all obviously adhering to permit conditions).
It is close on two years now that I have been working with trawlermen. I even call myself an honorary trawlerman. On several occasions I have said, publicly, that the huge, positive response shown by this fishery on the plight of the albatross has blown me away; the future for the birds in our trawl fishery can only improve.
Some time back, I was asked if I was interested in attending a trawl mitigation workshop in New Zealand. My response: is the Pope a Catholic?
With sponsorship from consultants Deepwater Group, I was winging my way to the Southern Seabirds Solution workshop in Nelson with Barrie Rose (I&J). We spent a morning birding in Singapore en route.
Nelson greeted us with blue skies on 26 September, and I gave a presentation on seabird interactions and mitigation in the South African hake trawl fishery. I expressed concern regarding the numbers of white-capped albatrosses drowned on our trawl warps before the introduction of tori lines.
It was great to meet up with Ben Sullivan again and to 'chew the fat' over the next steps for seabird programmes. Ben has a new 'toy' up his sleeve or up some snood... EXCITING stuff. Mum's the word (more to come). Good on ya, mate...
All pumped up after the workshop, Barrie and I headed south and did not one, but two high-sea trips off Kaikoura! We spotted at least 16 Salvin's albatrosses within arm's reach and 'wandering' albatrosses.
We may also have seen Gibson's albatrosses, as our guide, Gary Melville, pointed out a ringed 10-year old female (according to Gary, female Gibson's have a bluish tip to the lower mandible; the male a whitish tip). We saw rafts of Hutton's shearwaters and several other species, including a Westland petrel.
To top it all, a stranded adult leopard seal was at the jetty!
It was time to go home. It was just as well we were flying out of Auckland, as flights were grounded from Nelson to a wild, windy Wellington.
So, after an inspiring week, we left the Land of the Long White Cloud. No probs.