We’ve had very exciting and excellent weather in Walvis Bay this month with dominant south-westerly winds creating ideal conditions for a variety of water-sports and the flocking of birds into the lagoon.
Namibia has a closed season in the hake fishery every October with the primary aim of protecting the spawning fish. This means that we have a rest from at-sea activities and catch up on our other duties. This does not keep us quiet; we tend to put more of our efforts into administration work such as organising annual WWF and Albatross Task Force (ATF) workshops which aim to provide participants (observers, fishery inspectors, skippers and operation managers) with a broad understanding of responsible fishing and the eco-system approach to fisheries management.
Moreover, through our work in the ports, fisheries visits and workshops, ATF Namibia has approached every fishing company and has received positive feedback on the role that the ATF instructors are playing to reduce the mortality rate of seabirds. All the skippers and some of the observers that I have interviewed support the idea behind and the implementation of Bird Scaring Lines on every trawl and longline vessel in Namibia.
These actions have produced a very good relationship between ATF Namibia, the fishing industry and the Fishery Observer Agency that will help introduce seabird friendly measures into fishing operations over the coming years.
In the first part of this diary I commented on the general tasks carried out by ATF instructors onboard. Now I will describe some more occurrences during the trip.
On this journey I shared with a scientific observer, Alex López, from the Fisheries Institute (IFOP). IFOP are the organisation in charge of fishery investigation in the swordfish fleet and following the Chilean National Plan of Action Seabirds for that fishery. Alex became an excellent work mate, especially as he had gained a lot of experience this year helping build tori lines for several of the swordfish vessels.
More over, Alex had been a great conversational companion with whom I was glad to share a wealth of topics both of professional and general life, making the long distance from the continent and my loved ones seem much less daunting.
The collaboration of the crew was hugely positive. From the boson to the deckies, all chipped in to help prepare the mitigation measures we were testing. The officers also gave us all the facilities available to record the different data we collected, as well as noting down interesting sightings of birds and cetaceans during their long hours on watch.
We managed a harmonious coexistence, more so than I have ever found on previous fishing vessels. The crew were so interested in our work that we were asked for extra reading materials about the importance of conservation of fish, birds, mammals and marine reptiles. This was satisfied in part through the educational materials produced by our ATF colleagues.
We have since decided to dedicate time to creating our own fishery orientated bulletin for the Pacific coast of South America. For this reason I began interviewing and compiling photos of the crew and fishing practices to show the reality of the fishery and the conservation efforts underway in the Chilean longline fleet. Soon I hope this material will provide the impetus to create the first edition that we can circulate to all the fishing vessels that currently interact with albatrosses and petrels in the South Pacific!
It has been an emotional winter, with two sensational sea trips. I have so much information I don’t know where to start; attacks from a group of killer whales (orcas), arrivals of turtles, albatrosses and fantastic fishes plus all the great stories from the fishermen!
I’ll start with the captain, Jorge Cabeção, better known as the legendary Jorge Bighead, who has been working at sea since 1970. Jorge explained on the last trip how he had seen so many seabirds caught over the years, and that the large wandering albatross were no exception. “These days”, he said, “we don’t see so many and only during the winter period.”
Jorge Bighead has been supporting our Projeto Albatroz initiative in Brazil by speaking with the other captains over the radio while we are at sea. He speaks of the application of mitigation measures, explaining to others the work we are doing during the trip and the importance of helping us demonstrate this to more members of the fleet.
During one of these discussions I had the chance of chatting with a couple of Portuguese vessels that were fishing in international waters, each setting over 70 nautical miles of hooks per day. The captains explained that they didn’t know about seabird mitigation in fisheries, so we invited them to speak with ATF instructors from Brazil, Uruguay or Argentina when they stop in one of our ports for supplies.
Continuing our discussions with Jorge Bighead, we spent time looking at tori line installation options and fitted his vessel with a device that helps deploy and retrieve the tori line more swiftly. It was really practical for use at-sea and, happily, we had no problems with seabirds during the trip! The issues were due more to the orcas. Two groups attacked fishing lines on three separate occasions. Five individuals managed to strip lots of tuna and swordfish from the line, ruining an entire days fishing.
Other captains commented that the area between Uruguay and Brazil is known for this group of fantastic animals, stating that they had become expert fishers! The natural environment has responded in various ways to human fishing, becoming more difficult by the day. The captains are interested to hear what we think about the situation and there is always a lot of discussion onboard. We need to give natural systems some time to reproduce without pressure, but we do not give any time for species and populations to recuperate.
I have recently returned from sea and I would like to share the experience I had on a coastal trawler. Last Friday I was waiting for the call from the skipper of the Don Domingo to allow me to test some innovations on our ‘surfboard’ design (our special device that helps keep tori lines under greater control at-sea). I had to make sure I could get the equipment ready and initial tests done before I took it to sea on a long trip that would last over 45 days.
The weather was fine, so I went to the harbour to ask for more information from the skipper. This vessel is big enough to get some good experiments done and the trips are short, no more than 5 days so we have a good turn-around time. However, there have been some administrative problems (as always!) and the vessel is probably not going to be available for a few days. I was feeling completely disappointed about the delay as it takes ages to sort out trips, but all of a sudden I noticed a rush of activity in the Quequen port.
Most of the coastal vessels were preparing to leave so I ran up to the Volador, a coastal vessel that I know from previous trips, a bit smaller than the Don Domingo. I asked if they were about to go and fish and they replied, “Yes, in about one hour!”
I had to make a quick decision because I knew it would be a hard trip, uncomfortable, dirty and due to the small vessel probable sickness for several days!! I had been waiting for the Don Domingo for too long and I desperate to do some preliminary experiments. I asked the skipper for permission, grabbed all the materials, dashed to my house to collect my toothbrush, and was out at sea within two hours!
The trip was good, except for a day with winds over 30km/h. I wondered how these guys bear this work on a regular basis. The food is good but the living space is tiny (3 x 4 metres for 5 people) and an intense smell of gas oil, cigarette smoke and fish is present all day. The bathroom is the vessel’s best feature; a 0.5m x 0.5m space on the stern looking out over the soaring albatrosses!
October turned out to be a very busy, but exciting month, in the office of the South African Albatross Task Force team! We decided to embark on organising a Save Our Seabirds Festival, aimed at highlighting the need to protect our seabirds and raise awareness around the work the Seabird Division of BirdLife South Africa and the ATF are currently doing.
The week’s activities ranged from education programmes to public lectures, birding outings, boat trips and a gala cocktail evening. For more information on the National education programme and the special birding tours organised to Robben Island, read Lisa Mansfield’s diary entry for this month.
Three cheese-and-wine evenings were highly successful and packed to the brim with members of the public and VIP guests. The topics and speakers were as follows: Peter Steyn: Antarctic Impressions; Prof. Les Underhill: “The secret lives of Langebaan’s waders” and Prof. George Branch: “Seabirds as key contributors to marine ecosystems”. A representative from government gave an opening address and the BirdLife South Africa/Canon Seabird Photographic Competition was opened.
The top ten finalists’ seabird photographs were on display in the Two Oceans Aquarium. Two competition winners were chosen: firstly by popular vote from members of the public and secondly, the main winner, chosen by auction (bringing in the highest bid) on an online shopping and auction site. The top photograph, “Tern in the catch” by Basie van Zyl bought in R1000, while the popular vote was won with a sooty shearwater’s wing skimming the waters edge by Wilfred Chivell. This innovative competition idea managed to bring in over R3000 alone!
A birding trip out to Rietvlei to view estuarine and coastal birds was a great day spent outdoors and we managed to count 51 species of birds within a couple of hours. A bank cormorant even decided to catch a ride on one man’s bag! Next door to Rietvlei, there is a rehabilitation centre, SANCCOB (The South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Seabirds). We were taken on a very informative tour, by the in-house vet (Tertius Gous) to see what work they do with injured and oiled seabirds.
The highlight of the evenings’ events was the Gala Cocktail evening held at the Irvin and Johnson Predator exhibit (shark tank) in the Two Oceans Aquarium. The evening was jam-packed full of fun activities such as fun raffles and a presentation on seabird conservation and the Seabird Division’s efforts to address the issues. During the evening a prestigious owl award was presented to Barrie Rose (ex Irvin and Johnson Ltd – fishing company) for his outstanding contribution and help towards seabird conservation over several decades, the Atlas of Seabirds at Sea and the Marine Important Bird Areas Programmes were launch (South African Plastics Federation has sponsored R100000 towards this project).
To end the festival off on a high note, we said to farewell to ten lucky people, who went on a two-night pelagic trip. They set sail on the Maharani, a sailing yacht which has completed 3 Cape to Rio races. The team was lucky enough to see 32 different species of seabirds, including seven types of albatross.
All in all, Save Our Seabirds Festival was a resounding success on all fronts, with several hundreds people attending the events and hundreds more viewing the photographic competition results online. We also raised over R80000!