Gillnets Archives | Seabird Task Force

Feeding back to fishermen and gearing up for another field season!

To be effective, our seabird bycatch teams all over the world need to be in regular contact with fishery stakeholders. Of course, spending time on boats and in port means we frequently speak to fishermen, but it’s important to take the opportunity to step back and talk about some of the big issues with fishermen, scientists and national fisheries departments. The Seabird Task Force in Lithuania did just that this past summer, by holding a workshop to present our preliminary project results on gillnet bycatch mitigation and plan the next steps for our field work – which is beginning again as we write!

At the workshop, the Task Force team presented the results of our winter 2015/16 mitigation trials. A total of 78 fishing trips were conducted to compare the levels of bycatch in standard nets with our experimental nets, carrying black and white ‘net panels’. Both fishermen and our observers collected data on fish and bird catch to help us test whether the panels could reduce bird bycatch while maintaining the catch of target fish.

During this field season, participating fishermen caught 89 birds, with the most common species being the Velvet Scoter. Long-tailed Duck, Red-throated Diver and Common Scoter. As is often the case with seabird bycatch, it was highly variable day to day – many days could pass with no birds caught; on one day, a single trip caught 36 birds and just 9 kg of fish- demonstrating the severity of bird bycatch and the need to find solutions!

Our high contrast panels have shown promising preliminary results- while we need to carry out more trips to be able to have stronger statistical evidence to back up our findings- there are indications that nets carrying panels catch fewer birds. The raw data also indicate that most birds where caught in water depth of 10 meters. Very interestingly, the fish catch in the nets with high contrast panel increased compared to the normal nets. We hope to post more details of our analysis on this blog shortly! These results were well received during the workshop by both fishermen and government representatives.

One of the participating fisherman also gave a presentation and he shared his own positive experience of using the panels, collaborating with LOD and his hopes for working towards a reduction in seabird bycatch. In the last session of the day, the Ministry of Agriculture (Department of Fisheries) provided a presentation on their vision for bycatch reduction and opportunities for funding- providing the framework for a very useful discussion on the next steps for this work. The team outlined that in the next field season we will keep testing the same panels more widely and will examine the utility of new methods, such as underwater net lights. As this work is now underway, look out for another blog soon about what we’ve been up to this winter!

Lithuania

First measures to reduce seabird bycatch in Portugal

By Iván Gutiérrez and Ana Santos, SPEA Bycatch Observers.

The team is focused on the contrast panels at the moment. We are getting them manufactured and deploying them in the water to make some preliminary tests. The aim is to have those 100% ready so we can start the mitigation tests to reduce seabird bycatch in Portuguese gillnet fisheries in September. So far, so good!

[This post is a follow up from: Seabird Task Force sets sail in Portugal]

When we received the news that the project had been approved we felt the hurry to start as soon as possible. But Christmas arrived and we hadn’t had enough time to search for a company to produce the contrast panels. We wanted to start right away so we decided to go the artisanal way – the team and their families started manufacturing the panels themselves!

The specific materials needed to resist salt water so they were not easy to find, but once we found them, the work went very well – about a third of the panels are done now! While some of us are still sewing, others are already fixing the contrast panels on the gillnets (those kindly provided by the team in Lithuania – thank you!).

At the end of April we started the on-board observations with the modified nets. This first test is very important in order to understand how practical the panels are for the fishermen. We also need to see which adjustments and changes need to be made to guarantee that in the next winter everything is operational for the real mitigation tests.

Contrast panels attached to the fishing net © SPEA

Until now the preliminary tests have gone very well. The presence of the panels in the gillnets does not seem to affect fish catch. In fact, the opposite happened: during test days catches were higher in the modified nets. More importantly, the modified nets do not disturb the fishers’ work which is one of our priorities.

In order to analyze the measures from an economic point of view, we are collecting data about the fish catches – total catch, species and fish size. We measure a determined fish sample from fishing events with and without panels in order to understand the differences.

On the trip back to the port, the fishermen had a big smile on their faces, because they initially thought that fish catch would be poor with these modified nets and that it would be difficult to work with these panels. Fortunately, the results have been quite positive and we are very pleased.

The next weeks we will continue to make on-board observations and testing these first mitigation measures in gillnets in Portugal.

It’s too early for conclusions, but hopefully the results will remain positive!

Portugal

Shedding light on seabird bycatch

By Tomasz Linkowski & Anetta Ameryk, Polish National Marine Fisheries Research Institute NMFRI

For the first time in EU waters, we want to test net lighting in Polish gillnet fisheries to minimise seabird bycatch, thanks to a new project coordinated by BirdLife International and funded by the European Commission to specifically look at gillnet bycatch mitigation. As part of BirdLife’s existing work in the Baltic (Lithuania), testing of net panels is already being carried out, so it only made sense to examine the efficacy of an alternate measure in Poland. While it was relatively easy to come up with a solution, actually implementing it turned out to be a challenge!

At the beginning of December, we decided together with BirdLife International that due to light conditions prevailing in the winter season in the the South Baltic, net lighting instead of the high contrast panels (see below) already tested in Lithuania should be more effective in protecting birds against their accidental bycatch in gillnets.

High contrast panel being tried out in Lithuania.
Fish luring lights used in the net lighting measures in Poland.

Images above: On the left, fish luring lights used in the net lighting measures in Poland. On the right, high contrast panel being tried out in Lithuania.

The effectiveness of lamps produced by the Korean company CENTRO had already been documented to reduce seabird bycatch in the Southern Pacific. So why would the same measures not be as effective in the Baltic? Once the decision was taken, we thought it’d be easy enough to start trying out the idea.

It turned out CENTRO lamps were not available either in Europe or at the manufacturer in Korea in time to start our project in the present season. In the end, we only managed to buy two pieces of CENTRO lights so we had to look for alternatives. We successfully found appropriate lights and after some trouble we managed to buy 350 lamps of Korean production type YML-1000 (photo below) of a very similar design and parameters with respect to the original CENTRO product.

Lights © Anetta Ameryk/Morski Instytut Rybacki

Once we had the lamps in our hands, we came across another issue. The proposed lamps had been developed for longline or angler catches of swordfish, so adapting them for our project needs was not so obvious. Luckily, we eventually got around that issue too!

Mounting the lights © Anetta Ameryk/Morski Instytut Rybacki

The lamps reached the NMFRI in mid-February and they were immediately installed on previously prepared net sets by owners of two boats with whom the NMFRI had earlier signed relevant agreements on cooperation within the project.

After negotiations with fishermen, they considered that they could try with automatic lamps which should not significantly slow down the process of fishing and would hopefully be effective in minimizing seabird bycatch.

Nets ready for use © Anetta Ameryk/Morski Instytut Rybacki
Mounting the lights © Anetta Ameryk/Morski Instytut Rybacki

The lamps have been installed by each fisher on two sets of nets with a length of approx. 300 m. Two identical net sets have been left with no lights as control sets. The next step will be to examine any operational issues with the lights so we can eventually deploy them in big numbers.

Now that we are ready to set sail, we are eager to share our next steps with you!

Poland

Stopping gillnet bycatch – how do we do it?

Spring is arriving all over Europe, and everyone is looking forward to longer days, more sunshine and wildlife waking up again. I love spring myself, and I’m not a glutton for punishment, but I have been casting my mind back to a snowy week in West Virginia, USA, at the end of January.

It’s not because I’m pining for the cold, but because it was then that we ran a workshop with the American Bird Conservancy focussing on the development of technical measures to reduce bycatch in gillnet fisheries. Working with researchers, fishermen, NGOs and sensory ecologists from across the world, we were looking to go beyond national and species-group silos to discuss innovative ideas to reduce gillnet bycatch – something which we are actively trying to tackle in Lithuania as part of this project.

The core purpose of the workshop was to come up with some specific project proposals to test ideas for bycatch mitigation, ideally with a cross-taxa focus – covering at least two out of three of birds, turtles and marine mammals. If you’re a bycatch geek, we hope to post a link to the full report of the workshop here soon – so keep your eyes peeled. In the meantime, here are few reflections from the workshop from me:

We need to work across species and sectors

Gillnet bycatch is a global issue of major concern – as sea turtle expert Bryan Wallace put it: ‘Net bycatch has the highest cumulative severity across air-breathing megafauna taxa of any major fishing gear category’. There is thus much to be gained by working across species groups. The literature on mitigating this problem is far richer for e.g. cetaceans than it is for seabirds. Ideas that have shown potential for one species (or group of species) could show promise for others – see, for example, John Wang’s work on net lighting for turtles – how might this apply to velvet scoter or bottlenose dolphins?

Something that came up time and again at the workshop was the need to work with fishermen. Fishermen understand their gear, have insights into interactions with non-target species and understand the practical realities of deploying mitigation measures in their fishing operations. This approach is central to what we are doing with the Seabird Task Force, and is an approach that BirdLife truly pioneered with the Albatross Task Force.

We need to better understand interactions with gillnets

Turtles, seabirds and marine mammals often become entangled in nets away from the human gaze, which means our understanding of how bycaught animals interact with gillnets is poor. Better understanding othese interactions – perhaps utilising advancing camera technology – will surely help us unlock solutions. It might allow us to key in on particular aspects of behaviour around nets to reduce the likelihood of entanglement.

We need to approach the problem from a sensory ecology perspective

Or in more straightforward language – we need to understand how species see, hear, feel (perhaps even smell and taste!) the world, so that we can design appropriate mitigation measures. I won’t spend much time on this here, but you can read a blog I wrote about it here – where you can also access the paper this blog was based on.

We need to get out there and test stuff!

The only way we will develop solutions is to get out on vessels and start testing some ideas! Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting slap-dash poor experimentation without proper thought. Well thought-out ideas, understanding the fundamentals of sensory ecology and thinking about the type of interaction an animal has with a net are all important – that’s why I mention them first – but we need to start getting our hands salty and seeing what works and what doesn’t. It’s in that spirit that the Seabird Task Force was founded, and it’s in that spirit that we hope to find solutions to the problem of gillnet bycatch in the Baltic – and beyond.

Lithuania

Autumn and winter in the field

[Turimas lietuviy]

The Lithuanian Ornithological Society together with Birdlife international is involved in actions to reduce seabird bycatch in gillnet fisheries. Our field work this autumn and winter has focused on working together with local fishermen to trial some new types of fishing nets. Instead of using normal fishing nets we are trying modified gillnets for cod fisheries. The nets are modified by changing the upper part of the net to be more visible by using nylon.Diving birds should have better visualization while diving to see these nets.

The aim of the study is not to ban the coastal gillnet fishery but to reduce bird bycatch without altering the fishery significantly.

In Lithuania, the project team – three bird observers/specialists – have honed their skills to learn about fish species. The reason for this is that our team join the local cod fishermen on board their boats on trips to the open sea to collect data on fish catch and bird bycatch. Our team is counting the different fish species caught in our modified fishing nets and from regular nets, measuring and weighing the fish catch. The aim is to look if there is a difference in fish catch depending on net type.

In autumn, there is an intensive fishery for cod along the Lithuanian coast, and many coastal fishermen are targeting this species, so lots of our survey work was done during autumn. The winter period is more difficult as the fishermen are changing their fish target from cod to smelt. The weather conditions in winter also became problematic. When temperature falls below -10 C (14F) the Baltic Sea begins freezing over, and nets become covered by sea ice.

In our next blog post we will provide additional detail on our field season, preliminary findings and next steps.

Lithuania