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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...

The last two mont hs have been quite hectic. The work has been great fun and really rewarding capped by a really good sea trip at the end of May. I continued with the tori line experiments that I have been doing for the last nine months. This work has proved to be really successful showing fishermen...

Aft er working the last year aboard trawlers I have now started to work on longline vessels that target deep-sea hake off the coast of Namibia . I have just completed a very successful first trip aboard the West Coast II. This vessel sets fishing lines up to 27 km long along the seabed. During the...

Summer has arrived and with it the departure of many of our foraging albatrosses and petrels to their breeding islands in the southern Oceans around New Zealand, the storm-ravaged islands in the Roaring 40’s and South Georgia. These birds have been replaced by several species of seabirds that have...

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...

At the end of September, I was invited by Rossing Uranium Limited, a large uranium mine that is owned by Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ), to present a talk to a group of secondary school students. They were taking part in the Rossing Bird Day. RTZ conducts this Birdlife partnered activity annually as part of their...

By deploying bird scaring lines (tori lines) from trawl vessels, seabirds are prevented from colliding dangerously, and often fatally with the trawl cables. To assess the performance of the tori lines in the Namibian fishery we are carrying out trials onboard commercial vessels and demonstrating their...

I was recently invited by the International School to give a talk to their students about my work - a brilliant opportunity as many of the kids have parents involved in the fishing industry. In fact, my invitation came about because two of the senior students had done a project about a year ago on...

The big news from Namibia is that we have now begun our research project, and flown the first ever bird-scaring tori lines on a trawler in Namibia. This honour fell to the MFV Fisherbank belonging to Hangana, a Namibian company that has been very supportive of our work. The crew were fantastic, and...

It's a great pleasure for me to tell you what is going on in Namibia at the moment, especially on the side of the longline fleet. Since February 2009 I have been organising a trip with one of the hake longline vessels so that we can get a better idea of the contact this fleet has with seabirds. I...

We have been operating for a year now and have a made some progress on getting a handle on what is happening in the Namibian hake trawl fishery. I have not been out to sea recently, but am hoping to rectify this soon as the office becomes tedious compared to life at-sea! 2009 got off to a brilliant start...

My name is Kaspar Shimooshili; I have studied a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources specializing in Fisheries and Aquatic Science at the University of Namibia. I am the second Albatross Task Force Instructor in Namibia tasked to work with the hake longline fishery. Previously, I have worked for...

Hi everybody. My name is John Paterson and I am the first Albatross Task Force Instructor to be based in Namibia. I have been tasked to work with the hake trawl fishery in Namibia and a second Instructor is to be recruited to work with the hake longline fishery. This is all new and exciting for...

It seems ages ago now, but it was in April last year that Samantha Petersen and I sat down one evening to draft the proprosal to set up an Albatross Task Force (ATF) in Namibia. The death rate of seabirds in Namibian waters is unacceptable. Last year, a report, The Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem...

There are only two commercial harbours in Namibia: Walvis Bay to the north and Luderitz in the south. Sandwich harbour, a former fishing port, is now a proclaimed Ramsar site (i.e. a site designated for international protection due to its wetland wildlife importance). But, Walvis Bay is where we are...

Barry and I spend the next few days working on the brochure, and visiting various contacts in the trawler industry. The Task Force team have recently started looking at the Namibian fishery, and Barry introduces me to the head of the largest trawler company up there. Meanwhile, the chances of getting...

After the trip to Namibia in October where we learnt from interviewing skippers that seabird bycatch may be a problem, we decided to head back and continue what we had started. Now it was time to go to sea and see what really happens there. I spent four weeks in the town of Luderitz in southern Namibia...

At the moment I am in between two trips. I have just spent a week in the wonderful town of Walvis Bay, Namibia. Walvis Bay holds the biggest fleet of hake longliners in Namibia, along with a large number of trawlers and open-sea long-liners operating from there. Namibia has adopted a National Plan of...

We have 75 confirmed attendees for the hake longline workshop this week, which includes boat owners, skippers, crew and representatives from Marine and Coastal Management. I’m looking forward to building a relationship with this group. Currently, this type of longline sinks very slowly, and the...