Wandering Albatrosses from South Georgia are at risk. Photo Chris Harbard

At the latest round of fisheries talks in Recife, Brazil, today (9 November), scientists are gathering to agree on quotas for the Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks of tuna and swordfish. Getting caught in fishing gear is the greatest single threat to many seabirds.

According to the RSPB and BirdLife, at least 37 species of seabird are at risk from these fisheries and 18 of these species, including albatrosses, are under threat of extinction.

The RSPB and BirdLife International is looking to these talks to agree measures to prevent the deaths of these seabirds in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Tuna and swordfish fisheries use longlining, and for the albatrosses and other seabirds which die on the end of longline hooks, this is their greatest extinction threat.

Dr Cleo Small , an albatross expert working with the RSPB and BirdLife International, is attending the Recife meeting, organised by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

“The populations of albatrosses are declining faster in the South Atlantic than any other ocean,” said Dr Small. “For example, the Wandering Albatross – possessing the largest wingspan of any bird – is rapidly declining on South Georgia, and links have been made between these declining populations and longline fishing within the ICCAT fishery.

“This situation is needless, because the technology exists to prevent these deaths. We will be urging delegates to approve rules that make it mandatory for all vessels fishing for tuna and swordfish in the Atlantic to abide by simple measures which lower the risk of albatrosses and other seabirds dying in these fisheries.”

Dr Small added: “The main problem is that albatrosses try to steal fish and squid bait from longline fishing hooks. The birds get caught on the hook and quickly drown when the lines are set. The bodies of these birds, recovered hours later, are a grim reminder of the sheer toll of seabirds that these fisheries can take.”

The population of Wandering Albatrosses on South Georgia had halved in number by 2009, compared with the early 1960s. Other species at risk include the Tristan Albatross of the South Atlantic and the Balearic Shearwater of European waters. Both species are listed as Critically Endangered by BirdLife. 

Eight of the top ten seabird species considered to be most at risk from Atlantic longline fisheries nest on the three UK Overseas Territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands; Tristan da Cunha and South Georgia.  The top six most at risk seabird species in the Atlantic are albatrosses.

BirdLife's Global Seabird Programme is striving to ensure that relevant international agreements are implemented that will benefit both the birds and the legal fishing industry using simple and inexpensive mitigation measures, which are highly successful in reducing seabird bycatch.

The Programme achieves this through the Albatross Task Force (ATF) which has instructors in seven countries, including South Africa, Namibia, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina in the Atlantic. The instructors demonstrate the correct use of mitigation measures to fishermen, and also develop and test new measures.

Mitigation measures have been used to great effect in some of the world’s other fisheries. In sub-Antarctic waters, mitigation measures have reduced albatross bycatch from thousands of birds a year to effectively zero. Additionally, fantastic reductions in seabird bycatch have been secured within the foreign tuna longline fleet, operating in South African waters, which has cut seabird bycatch by 85 per cent.