I am back on land now. The 'Saxon' docked in Cape Town Harbour on Sunday afternoon.
The next day, I came back to the harbour where they were offloading their catch to deliver the tori line I promised them and also give them some T-shirts. These shirts cry in big red letters 'SAVE THE ALBATROSS' which I think makes good publicity for us, especially when they're worn by the fishermen themselves. They do love these shirts...
I can honestly say the trip was successful. We didn't catch a single bird while another longliner who was fishing close to us caught three albatrosses. Talking to the skipper, he said he has used a tori line but weather conditions reduced its efficiency. This boat is my next target and hopefully I'll be joining them in April.
The crew of the 'Saxon' promised to keep me informed of their bycatch in the next trips as they have been doing for the last year and also report me the if the new tori line works.
Let's hope it does...
I have decided this time to write my diary 'live' from sea. At the moment I am on my seventh day onboard the 'Saxon', a South African tuna and swordfish longliner which agreed to carry me onboard for the second time (first trip was last May). We are enjoying very moody weather which constantly changes.
I guess being not far from the Roaring Forties (37-38 south, about 180 miles off the south coast) does have its implications.
The good news is that after six fishing days, no birds were caught. The birds are around and on the first day, to my delight I have managed to spot six species of albatrosses in one day. There were black browed, Atlantic yellow nosed, shy and the three exciting ones - sooty (two), wandering (three) and northern royal (one). What an amazing kick-off for the trip!
As it is summer here, the variety of birds is phenomenal. Northern birds such as European storm-petrel, Cory's shearwater and long-tailed, Arctic and pomarine skuas mingle with 'local' southern birds such as black-bellied, white-bellied and Wilson's storm-petrels, flesh-footed shearwater, white-chinned petrel and the rare and elusive spectacled petrel (which is following us for the last two days). All these are attracted to the rich Cape waters.
So as you can imagine, the party is on and the list is big! But, of course there is work to be done and in a couple of minutes, I will go downstairs and deploy the TDR (Temperature and Depth Recorder) on the line to study the line sinking rate which affects the seabird bycatch.
It was very interesting to show Koos, the skipper, my results from the last trip. I could show him that the line was sinking in such a rate that if the bird-scaring line (tori line) will be efficient (i.e. will stop the birds from reaching the bait 150 m behind the boat), it will be almost too deep for petrels to take. So all you have to do is make sure the tori works.
It is really great to be able to share all this 'live'. These trips teach us so much and I will definitely share with you the results of this trip when I'm back.
Cheers,
Meidad and the crew of 'Saxon'
Peter Exley, from the RSPB, had chosen to come to Cape Town for his sabbatical. He is helping me to produce an awareness brochure on conserving seabirds in the South African hake trawl fishery.
Meeting him at the airport, it was clear after several minutes of chat that he was as keen as mustard to get to sea and experience life on board a trawler and 'grip' the iconic albatross.
Barrie Rose (Irvin & Johnson) organized us a cabin on board the wet-fish vessel Aloe and the evening of 24 January saw us steaming out of Cape Town harbour and through a flock of 1,400 Sabine's gulls and a 'lifer' for Peter - a sooty shearwater.
I was continuing my work on getting tori lines to work really well. The first four days of the trip were pretty boring with kelp gulls dominating the attending birds and the true potential of the tori line was not demonstrated.
The skipper, Randy Newman, explained to Peter what all the screen monitors on the bridge were for and that the net opening was some 120 m wide, with a 2-3 m mouth opening. Emanuel, the cook, served up fresh hake and curries and we witnessed a large fleet of tuna pole vessels in the area. Albatrosses were pretty scarce and Peter gave me a tall order - to find him a wandering albatross.
On the fifth day, we moved further south and bird numbers changed dramatically. No more kelp gulls. Shy albatrosses (600) and only 25 black-broweds, 1,300 white-chinned petrels and similar numbers of sooty shearwaters were typical counts in the 200 m zone astern.
There was a small irruption of European storm-petrels and one landed on the aft deck. We photographed it and released it unharmed. These birds weigh 30 g or equivalent to the weight of a packet of crisps, as Peter put it so neatly.
Despite higher numbers of birds, interactions with the warps were minimal, due to the deployment of tori lines. These tori lines really are efficient and Emanuel was by now genuinely interested in our work, and requested seabird identification brochures for the crew mess room.
The sixth and last day was stressful for Peter as no wanderer had, or was, sighted. I did manage, however, to show him a couple of uncommon species in flesh-footed shearwater and the unmistakable spectacled petrel.
Enjoy your wandering back home Pete and next time you're over here, I shall greet you with a placard saying 'Aloe! Aloe!'
It has not been an easy haul to get back out to sea again. Fisheries are in limbo at the moment, as new permits are still to be issued in the hake longline fishery. That means 'in' with some new rights-holders and skippers, and 'out' with some old guys.
At the same time, prices (driven by the market = that's you) have dropped and this encourages fishers to either stop fishing and carry out maintenance on their vessels or target another lucrative species, such as tuna, a species known to migrate inshore during this time of the year.
So some of the same hake vessels that I go out on, get a make-over and turn into a tuna fishing vessel (using the poling method) that target yellow-fin tuna for the local market.
Apparently the hake fishing is also quite bad this time of year, and only gets better during the winter period - good for them but bad for seabirds that over-winter here for food.
However, I have much hake longline data collected over the years that is being analysed, and certain questions need to be answered pronto, unfortunately meaning that I need to get out to sea!
Harbour visits were plenty; it was a time where I could target many fishermen: to hand out tori lines, and communicate with them about the seabird bycatch issue and the state of their fishery!
Nonetheless, a lot has been a happening on the awareness and education front, with our local fishermen and surf chicks.
Yes, you heard that correctly, a sport event took place here over the weekend, that brought like-minded marine ladies together to surf competitively (and learn how to) and to know more about the Save the Albatross Campaign.
The 'Billabong Girls Get Out There Surf Series' had us ATF ladies, Sam and I, sporting our stuffed albatrosses, tori lines, brochures, and sparkly beach personalities parading around the competition tents chatting to the attendees.
It's great that so many people are hearing about the campaign, particularly as these crowds use the ocean and its resources, and the plight of albatrosses was close to their hearts. Also, aquatic sports competitions and marine conservation go hand in hand these days.
Our fellow women out there also find the whole concept of female Albatross Task Force members as brave, determined and adventurous - maybe the next famous aquatic sport idol!
My God... let me tell you that this is not an easy job... it really is not, but it must be done with courage, persistence and with good heart.
I persist with the local fishermen and captains in order to instruct them why they should adopt the tori lines and the other mitigation measures. It is hard to convince them that if they reduce capturing seabirds, they will catch more fish and so generate more income for all of them and their families.
But as I said, it's hard and that's why my work on the ATF Brazil has been very busy on the harbour, giving talks, explaining the problem and addressing the by-catch of seabirds to fishermen and fishing industry owners.
The fact is that they all know what is happening on high sea... They all know that lots of albatrosses and other seabirds die on a daily basis on hooks ... But they don't care really...
Many captains say that they will only put the tori line when an official law from the Brazilian government will oblige them to mount the tori lines. Here, in southern Brazil, in Itajaí, where the biggest industrial fishing centre is located, there are reports about longline boats capturing about 40 to 50 albatrosses on a SINGLE fishing set!!!!!!
It's appalling!!! These numbers are brutal... and that's why we at Projeto Albatroz are working so much and so worried about this cause!
I believe that if all captains would follow Captain Zé, from Macedo I vessel, this problem could be resolved. Before he adopted the tori line, his vessel was capturing an average of 70 seabirds per fishing set.
After talks with Tatiana Neves, Projeto Albatroz general coordinator, about the tori line, he created his own tori and since 2001 he started using all the mitigation measures.
He is proud that in 2006 he just captured accidentally only five albatrosses! What an achievement!! In 2007, he wants to catch zero. We hope he can achieve that task!
I have been creating lots of activities to make fishermen, captains, fishing business owners and the public really aware of what is happening.
For that, I have organised lots of workshops for fishermen, produced and showed diverse videos recorded from the fishermen that already use the mitigation measures to the ones that don't use the measures, organised a stand dedicated to the problem in a very important nautical exhibition, where business fishing owners come together and, presently just managed to get some time in the most-viewed and listened TV and radio stations to produce two programmes to be broadcasted to the local fishing community,
Ah!! and I have managed to get three captains to adopt the tori line in their boats! I will mount these toris very soon!