Falklands Conservation

SEABIRDS AT SEA TEAM REPORT
Seabird Mortality in Fisheries and Mitigation Techniques in Falkland Island Waters
2003-2004
by Dr Ben Sullivan and Tim Reid

Supported by

After six years of at-sea surveys and investigations into seabird fisheries interactions, in July 2004 the Seabirds at-Sea Team will be replaced by the Albatross and Petrel Team, funded for two years by the UK Foreign Commonwealth Office (Overseas Territories Environment Programme). This new initiative will facilitate Falkland Islands compliance with the international Agreement on the Conservation of Albatross and Petrels, which came into force in February 2004. The UK signed up to this Agreement, including the Falkland Islands, in April 2004.

So while the Seabirds at Sea Team will cease to exist, the Albatross and Petrel Team will concentrate on implementing both the terrestrial and marine aspects of the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatross, which is a natural progression from the work conducted over the last six years. The new team’s work will include liasing with fisheries stakeholders to implement the recently adopted Plans of Action to reduce seabird mortality in the longline and trawling fleets, producing educational material for both the fishing industry and local schools, developing management plans for important breeding sites throughout the islands, and liasing with regional colleagues to improve the conservation status of the Islands’ black-browed albatross population.

Seabirds at Sea Team 2003/04

The first six months of our 2003/04 works programme consisted of experimental trials on longliners and trawlers. The second half was dominated by final consultation stages of the Falkland Islands Nation Plan of Action-Seabirds and the introduction of mitigation measures to reduce seabird mortality caused by the local finfish trawling fleet. A brief description of 2003-04 each projects is given below with links to full project reports.

Longline Weight Trials (August 2003)

In recent years longline weighting for Spanish system vessels has been based on the experimental work of Agnew et al. (2000), which used seabird mortality as the response variable. Those trials suggested that seabird mortality was significantly reduced by increasing line weighting from 4.25kg/40m to 8.5kg/40m. More recent work conducted in New Zealand suggested that on autoline vessels a sink rate of around 0.25m/sec in conjunction with a single streamer line was an appropriate mitigation prescription for reducing the mortality of seabird species that are adept divers and prone to high levels of longline mortality (e.g. white-chinned petrels).

In August 2003, we conducted a collaborative project with Dr. Graham Robertson (Australian Antarctic Division) and Consolidated Fisheries Ltd (Falkland Islands) onboard the CFL Valiant to investigate the sink rate of the same experimental weight regimes used by Agnew et al. (2000) using time depth recorders.

Brief Report on the Sink Rates of Spanish System Longlines with Special Reference to the Line Weighting Regimes of Agnew et al. (2000) - 40kb PDF file

Dispersal of Fledgling Black-browed Albatross (July-August 2003)

Over the last three years we have made a concerted effort to further increase the level of our international collaboration, particularly in the South American region. Our primary involvement has been a joint project with Tatiana Neves (Projeto Albatroz, Brazil), which investigated the dispersal of colour marked fledgling black-browed albatross from Steeple Jason Island throughout the South American region. This involved placing observers on fishing vessels in local and Brazilian waters and collaborating with other observer programmes, fishing companies and tourist operators to collect at-sea sightings of these birds throughout South America and the Southern Hemisphere in general. This project gave us a new insight into the dispersal of fledgling birds and increased our profile within the region.

Dispersal of colour marked fledgling black -browed albatross from the Falkland Islands. - 317kb PDF file

National Plan of Action-Seabirds (July 2003-June 2004)

In August 2002, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds contracted Falklands Conservation to write a Falkland Islands National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries. This project was conducted in close collaboration with Dr. Euan Dunn (RSPB, Senior Marine Policy Officer), Falkland Islands Fisheries Department and the local fishing industry.

A NPOA-S is a voluntary document prepared under guidelines of United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries. In the absence of similar policies addressing trawling, and in light of the seabird mortality problem with the local finfish trawling fleet the Falkland Islands’ Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Trawl Fisheries was also written.

Both Action Plans provide a comprehensive cyclical schedule of data collection and research to quantify and reduce (mitigate) seabird bycatch by longliners and trawlers operating in Falkland Islands waters and Falkland Islands flagged vessels operating outside local waters, to levels that will have no deleterious impact on the long-term sustainability of seabird populations, regardless of their provenance. The longlining plan formalises existing measures and introduces new steps to ensure that the current level of mortality is reduced to negligible levels over the next four years. As no mitigation measures have been proven to be effective in reducing warp cable related seabird mortality, the primary focus of the trawling plan is to develop and implement mitigation measures to reduce mortality to negligible levels over the next four years. In keeping with this objective a major focus of 2003/04 was conducting experimental trials to identify the most appropriate mitigation measure(s) for the Falklands’s fleet and negotiate with Falklands Fisheries Department and local industry to have these measures adopted as an integral part of licensing conditions.

After the initial draft was completed in early 2003 an 18-month consultation phase with industry and Government was conducted prior to the plans being officially adopted by the Falkland Islands Government Executive Council in March 2004. The Falkland Islands NPOA-S is the first to be written for a United Kingdom Overseas Territory, and as such, is critically important not only for the Falkland Islands but also for the international conservation commitments of the UK. While many countries are currently drafting plans, the Falkland Islands longline plan is one of the earliest to be officially adopted at the government level and our stand-alone trawling plan is a world first.

FI Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries - 323kb PDF file
FI Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Trawl Fisheries - 253kb PDF file
Falkland Islands Illex Jigging Assessment Directive - 58kb PDF file

Trawler Mitigation Trials (September-December 2003)

The majority of birds in Falkland’s trawl fisheries are killed after being dragged underwater by the warp cable (the cable that extends beyond the aft of the ship and is attached to the net) while feeding on factory discharge at the stern of the vessel. An unknown proportion of these birds are dragged down the cable and become impaled on a splice in the cable and are subsequently hauled onboard. Based on these findings and the size of the local trawler fleet (up to 30 vessels) in 2002 the primary focus of the programme changed to investigate and quantify the level of seabird mortality on trawlers.

In 2002/03 we focused on quantifying the level of mortality across the finfish fleet and commenced a joint project with the Falklands Fisheries Department to develop mitigation measures for trawlers. Using statistically robust methods we estimated that around 1,500 seabirds, predominantly black-browed albatross, were killed during this 12-month period. Trips conducted prior to, and after, this period of time consistently recorded similar levels of mortality, which suggests that a similarly high level of mortality is caused each year by the finfish fleet. Such a high level of trawling mortality caused by warp cable strikes has not previously been documented.

In 2003/04, our trawler investigations culminated in a series of trials to test a range of emerging mitigation measures to reduce seabird mortality caused by warp strike. Based on the results of our initial mitigation trials and advances made in New Zealand to tackle the same problem, in the spring of 2003 we conducted three months of experimental trials to compare the effectiveness of three devices (plus a fourth control treatment of no mitigation) on board a factory trawler. The trials were timed to coincide with the period of peak mortality in local waters.

Based on these findings and in compliance with the FI POA-Trawling the use of tori lines has become mandatory under licensing requirements for finfish vessels for the second season of 2004. This represents a unique opportunity to ensure the fleet wide adoption of standard (i.e. prescriptive) mitigation measures. Since March 2004 we have worked very closely with the Falklands Fisheries Department to design the specifications for the tori lines, source and ship the materials and coordinate their assembly prior to being distributed to each vessel.

As well as the two positions funded by the FCO, Falklands Conservation has received a generous donation from the Laskaridis family, (Christina Laskaridis worked as a volunteer for FC for six months over the spring and summer of 2003/04) which will be used to fund a Marine Observer to monitor the success of tori lines across the fleet, refine their design if required and conduct further trials on the warp scarer (a locally developed mitigation measure detailed in the Report below). In addition to monitoring the implementation of mitigation measures for the finfish fleet, this position also facilitates the trawling plan recommendation for dedicated seabird observer coverage of the trawling fleet.

FI Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Trawl Fisheries - 253kb PDF file

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