During the Southern Hemisphere summer, the Uruguayan swordfish fishery diminishes and several vessels reduce their number of sea trips. Only a single vessel remained active during January. This is a great opportunity for us to spread awareness about our work, taking to the fishing industry information about the Albatross Task Force and about finding solutions to reduce the mortality of seabirds.
With this as a motive, I have recently been working with Martín Abreu on various conservation awareness articles. We will publish these articles in our bulletin – Boletín Atlantico Sur – aimed at captains and crew of the fishing vessels and people involved with the fishery, essentially the entire Uruguayan fisheries sector.
It is important that as many people involved with the fishing industry as possible are aware of our work and realise what we are doing. Our work at-sea means that each trip we learn more about the species that visit Uruguayan waters, what impacts the fleet has on seabirds and most importantly, which are the best mitigation measures to prevent this interaction.
Two months ago, we came to an important point in the work we are carrying out to test the efficiency of tori lines in Uruguay. The results suggest that the use of a tori line successfully reduces the incidental mortality of seabirds associated with pelagic longline fisheries. However, the study is not complete and we need to continue the data collection before obtaining a definite conclusion. The results are very promising though and up to this point, we have not recorded a single mortality when we use a tori line.
Therefore, the article that we are writing for the Boletín Atlantico Sur is without doubt the piece that gives me most satisfaction. Whilst we are testing the tori lines onboard, little by little the captains are seeing that they are of use and not as complicated as they previously thought. It is true that they can become entangled from time to time but this is certainly something we can improve on.
Today we have a good message to give: the capture of seabirds can be reduced if we use a very simple mitigation measure.
My research investigating the effect of line weighting on target catch has been the major part of my efforts in 2009. It took me several months’ preparation before we were ready and I went on my first research trip onboard “my vessel”. I had prepared and set up specially configured fishing lines and equipment to use along with the ship’s normal gear.
I now really feel like this vessel is my second home, having done seven previous trips with them. Expectations were high, but I soon learned that doing research on fishing boats whilst they are struggling to catch fish for their living is not an easy task! Even though I tried to cover every corner and eliminate every problem that might come up, I discovered that unexpected issues just keep on popping up.
The Albatross Task Force has good experience with these issues – it is what we do! We have dedicated considerable time to these difficulties, which are typical of any work at-sea, and making allowances for when things go wrong. You get as much done as possible on each trip and every time you learn a new lesson. Now I’m waiting for the next trip!
Our goal is to see is whether line weighting affects the catches of fish. This way we can encourage fishermen to increase the speed they sink the line so albatrosses and other seabirds won’t have enough time to grab baited hooks. If there is no effect of line weighting on fish catch, we can push for heavier lines.
Amongst the struggle to collect the data correctly, there are always some highlights. Last trip, whilst fishing very close to Namibia, I managed to photograph two ringed Tristan albatrosses. These close cousins of the magnificent wandering albatross breed only on Gough Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. They are classified as critically endangered and, as well as the threat of longliners, they suffer from predation by mice on their breeding island.
Since it is impossible to separate them from the wandering albatross at-sea, very little is known of their at-sea distribution, but we do know they are caught by longline vessels. One day I counted 16 albatrosses around my boat, two of them were definitely Tristan’s (they carried coloured rings). I later found out that one of them, an adult male, was raising a chick back in Gough and was probably foraging before going back to the nest to feed the chick. Fortunately for the birds (and the hungry chick), we used tori lines, set at night and used weights twice as heavy. No birds were killed!!!
So now I’m waiting for the guys to go to sea and maybe I’ll see my giant friends again…
I have just returned from my first adventure at sea for 2010. I must say, even though the weather and fishing was poor, I managed to see my favourite albatross of all – the GREAT ocean roamer: the wandering albatross!
It was a stunning, very snowy-white adult that really enjoyed circling close to the vessel and landing very near to the stern from where I was conducting my observations. It did not appear to be eating that much of the discarded fish and just seemed to be curious!
On one occasion, toward the end of setting the nets, this beautiful bird landed about 10 metres from the boat as one of the deckhands arrived to put out the tori line. I eagerly showed him this giant bird as he began to throw the tori line over the side of the vessel. I told him some interesting facts and watched his face light up with excitement and interest!
At this point, we both looked down to find that the tori line he had been setting, while watching the albatross, had become wrapped around the trawl warp! He was so enthralled in watching and learning about this rare bird that he managed to get the very object protecting the birds entangled!
This was quickly righted and the rest of the afternoon was spent watching this majestic bird soaring on the wind in the wide open ocean.