In May-June 2007, 12 longline vessels from Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines received a permit to fish in South African waters, targeting mainly tuna and swordfish.
According to the South African law, every one of these vessels must carry an observer at all times. These observers who were trained by ATF members to collect seabird data amongst other fishing data started reporting huge numbers of birds being killed during fishing operations.
Barry and I spent the months of July-November driving up and down from the office to the harbour collecting dead seabirds from the docking boats. It got so bad that we actually had to rent a freezer in the harbour to temporarily keep all the birds in.
A total of 1,056 birds were reported killed between June and December 2007, including some very rare birds such as sooty albatross (first bycatch record in South Africa to my knowledge) and wandering albatross.
As a result, the Albatross Task Force and WWF Responsible Fishing Programme sat together and drew up a proposal of action to give to the government. This proposal focused on the permit conditions which every fisherman must follow when fishing in South Africa, and on the enforcement regulations.
The major breakthrough in this proposal was the implementation of a precautionary seabird catch limit which states that if a longliner kills 25 birds in total from the beginning of the year (i.e. 2008), they must prove that they used the necessary mitigation measures required by law on every set, such as bird scaring (tori) line and night setting.
If the boat has reached that limit and followed these conditions (recorded by the observer), they can continue fishing with more restrictions until they catch another 25 birds which in this case they must cease their fishing operations for the rest of the year.
If the boat wasn't following one of these conditions then they must cease their fishing operations for the year.
To our great pleasure, the government has adopted the proposal and along with other restrictions, such as obligatory participation of all skippers and officers in BirdLife (ATF) seabird mitigation training section, added it to the permit conditions officially in place since January 2008.
2008 is going to be a very exciting year! We are working very close to the Marine and Coastal Management (government marine authorities) to see how they enforce these new added regulations, which hopefully will help us eliminate the unnecessary killing of these beautiful creatures.
I have been on dry land!
The whole Albatross Task Force team in Chile - that's Dr Carlos Moreno, Rodrigo, Humberto, Oli and myself - have been working closely together. We don't often get this chance as we are based in different locations in Chile.
We got together to meet the industrial sword fish fleet and provide some workshops for them in February at the Universidad Católica del Norte.
First, we met the fishing companies, captains and crew of the swordfish fleet. We told them about our first year of running an Albatross Task Force in their country. We made sure that they went away with knowledge about the mitigation measures they can use to prevent seabird deaths on their longline vessels.
Then we held a specific workshop for the scientific observers who will be monitoring seabirds and the vessels out at sea. As I'm an ornithologist, I was in my element.
The observers need to be able to identify seabirds correctly, particularly ones that interact with the sword fish fleet. So I showed them photos, gave them new ID materials we had prepared and I ran a bird quiz for them.
I found it was a great experience to meet the various captains and crew and see their enthusiasm to help conserve seabirds in this fishery.