There have been some remarkable highlights recently with the second Instructors Workshop held in Piriapolis, Uruguay being one of them. That was an inspiring week, but there were some tense moments beforehand as our visas were only granted three days before we had to fly out of Walvis Bay. Cutting it a bit fine! Thanks to the Uruguayan team for organising such a wonderful event. Check out the pictures on the Albatross Task Force Facebook page.
More recently Global Seabird Programme Coordinator, Ben Sullivan paid our project a visit in June and we had some productive meetings at high level within the Ministry of Fisheries. Once again the Ministry showed willingness to support our work.
Shortly after Ben's visit I facilitated a workshop with key fisheries scientists and section heads to finalise a draft of the Namibian National Plan of Action – Seabirds for presentation to the minister. Watch this space for updates! This document is the roadmap for seabird bycatch mitigation in Namibia and will pave the way for legislation to reduce incidental seabird bycatch.
My work up to now has been on demersal (sea-floor) trawlers where we conducted successful trials showing the Namibian fleet the effectiveness of tori lines at preventing bird interactions with fishing gear. The results of this work are being analysed and written up for publication and will hopefully form the basis for developing best practice mitigation guidelines for the Namibian Hake trawl fishery.
The Ministry of Fisheries have had a consultant draft a management plan for Hake, the backbone of the local fishing industry, and we provided input on bycatch issues. Through this consultation we were able to include bycatch as a concern in this fishery and stipulate recommendations for relevant mitigation measures to become mandatory aboard trawlers and longliners.
Less positive news is that after a successful time with the ATF, my colleague in Namibia, Kaspar Shimooshili, has left the project to study for a master’s degree. His departure is a blow to the project, but we all wish him well with his studies and it was great working with him.
Kaspar’s move to new studies has left a gap in the Namibian ATF and the research he was working on. As this fishery potentially has the highest impact on seabirds it is one of our priorities and as such I have continued with the longline work until we can find a replacement for Kaspar – big boots to fill!
Consequently I have just returned from my first trip aboard a demersal longline vessel. It was an amazing experience, completely different to working on the trawl vessels I am used to. The tori line trials I conducted were successful with no birds being caught while mitigation was deployed.
I also used Time Depth Recorders on hooks to obtain a sink profile of how the fishing gear behaves during the setting operation. The preliminary results suggest that line weighting needs to be improved to increase the sink rate. A slow sink rate means baited hooks remain close to the surface and available to foraging birds for longer, increasing the risk of bycatch.
Effective line weighting is a recognised best practice mitigation measure in other countries and will no doubt make a big difference here as well.
The seven day trip started with calm seas and sunny weather. This changed to overcast and colder conditions to choppy seas to a howling gale and five meter swells for the last two days.
Apart from lots of wonderful albatrosses and petrels foraging around the vessel I also saw three pods of Long-finned Pilot whales, at least two Humpback whales and a pod of what was possibly oceanic Bottle-nosed dolphins.
There is just so much going on out at sea and working on the fishing vessels affords us the privilege of glimpsing this world. The highlight of the trip was, however, when I was packing up the tori line and the ship’s boson asked if they could keep it. I asked if they would use it and his response was that he had seen it worked well in keeping birds away and did not interfere with the lines. He said he was keen to use it. Of course I gladly left the tori line with him.
I have just returned from another trip with Projeto Albatroz, this time with the 22 meter King of Tuna, where I enjoyed many new experiences at sea and also shared information with the crew about our wonderful seabirds.
We left port Itajaí at 11:00 a.m with a full complement of nine crew members. The King of Tuna boat is operated by fishing master Juninho who targets swordfish and tuna.
We sailed for two days until we reached our fishing spot. During these first days at sea I spoke to the crew members about seabird bycatch that occurs on vessels that do not use best practice mitigation measures such as a tori line, night setting, and adequately weighted fishing lines.
Line weighting has recently become a new fishery regulation in Brazil, with this new measure the hooks sink much faster beyond the reach of seabirds, therefore preventing incidental bycatch.
The fishermen are aware that there are several different ways to prevent seabirds bycatch, and that apart from contributing to seabird conservation, they also stand the chance of catching more fish, as a hook with no bird on it is free to catch a tuna.
We are now using three measures in the Brazil fleet:
(Pictures below depict the three measures in order)
Happily, with these three mitigation measures employed onboard not a single bird was caught. We arrived back in port after fourteen days at sea.
This last trip to sea was onboard a vessel dedicated to catching swordfish and tuna. My goal was to continue experimenting with the tori lines we have been designing and testing in pelagic fisheries in Uruguay.
We conducted seven fishing operations, three with a tori line and four without. Despite an entanglement with the line, the tori lines again demonstrated that they are a good option for mitigating seabird bycatch as they significantly reduce the incidental capture of albatross and petrels.
I observed all the sets and hauls and recorded three White-chinned petrels that were caught during fishing operations that were conducted without mitigation measures, plus one during an operation when the tori line became entangled.
We have improved the design of the tori line this year, increasing the aerial extent which is critical to protecting the area where birds attack baited hooks. We are now working to adapt the tori line to find a way that may prevent the entanglement issues.
We are trying to understand the technical aspects of the mitigation measures at sea in commercial conditions, which helps us improve the materials and operation so that the tori lines will eventually be used under all and any sea conditions.
In order to do so, it is essential that the fishing master or skipper is involved in the experimental operations to correctly manoeuvre the vessel to assist our work. His cooperation prevents difficulties during the setting and retrieval of the tori line.
We have worked onboard this vessel before and despite the fact that setting and hauling a tori line involves a little extra work for the crew, the fishing master has voluntarily adopted the mitigation measure even when we are not onboard to conduct experiments.
As an anecdotal snippet of information, during this trip I released a cape petrel that had somehow found its way in to the vessel during the night. The mechanic, who has a phobia of birds, was not too keen on handling it to help it out of the engine room. I was therefore summoned to go and help save this hapless stow-away!
The day was a Sunday and the weather was not so great. Gusty winds exceeding 5 on the Beaufort scale coupled with big swells of more than 4 metres in height pretty much dominated that afternoon. Intermittent gusts of wind made it difficult for standard fishing operations on the day but the persistence and determination of the fishing master (i.e the skipper) diffused into each member of the crew and they pressed on regardless of bad weather conditions, unaware of the ‘greater reward’ they would find at the end of the day.
Fishing was good throughout the day, although half of the catch was either undersized or not good quality. This was about to change as they started hauling the last three sections of the line, which was comprised solely of our BirdLife/Fishtek Safe Leads. These are special fishing weights designed to prevent injuries to fishing crew in longline fisheries. Standard weights can fire back at the vessel under tremendous velocity and have been known to seriously injure and even kill crew members. Safe Leads prevent this sling-shot action as weights slide along the line under high tension and therefore dissipate the strain on the line.
The last portion of the line was about to cause a twist of fate for the day. Shortly, after hauling the first two sections of the experimental lines I had set up under ATF experimental configurations, there were signs of the gear becoming heavier from the sound of boat engine revving harder. From that point onward I knew that either the swell was too high or something huge was caught on that line.
My curiosity was later confirmed when I suddenly saw the crew start ganging up around the little hauling hatch through which the fish is pulled onto the deck. Suddenly, a black giant ‘big eye tuna’ popped up on the surface of the water, a massive 120 kg was caught on one of the lines incorporating our 150 gram Safe Leads.
We later realized that during bad weather conditions the heavier Safe Lead was catching more tuna which brought jubilation to both the skipper and the crew. You can imagine how ecstatic I was. I couldn’t hold myself. There I was armed with my sea-going gear jumping on the deck with the crew. As for the crew, they started singing Portuguese praise songs as majority of them are from Mozambique to thank the heavens for finally rewarding them with such a huge fish. This tuna was very fat, black and was still alive when pulled onto the deck. It took at least 4 members of the crew to lift it onto the deck.
Little did we know that this huge big eye tuna will later be voted number 1 and worth ~ US$ 7,000 on auction in Indonesia. On our way back to shore nobody wanted to sleep but all they talked about was this huge tuna that they caught using our 150 gram safe lead. I joined the party and we spent the whole night talking about this tuna. As for our skipper he couldn’t hold his emotions about it either, he came to the mess room and loudly said something that sounded more like Portuguese or maybe Spanish to me and I figured it wasn’t the latter because the Portuguese-speaking crew applauded him with unrestrained laughter. On land, we found the factory guys waiting for us on the jetty like a group of journalists who got a tip-off from some reputable source and indeed the source was our reputable skipper whom through the help of modern technology managed to send the headline story to them.
Everyone was overjoyed but I was so ecstatic that I even forgot to eat breakfast that day....
Bravo and Many thanks to the ATF team for their support and commitment to the conservation of seabirds. Your unending determination for the protection of albatrosses and petrels and to seabirds in general brings joy and a sense of living......