Incidental Catches Archives | Seabird Task Force

Lights burn bright but no fish in sight

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

The weather was fine but unfortunately the same could not be said about the fish. For over six months, fish have been “swept away” from the Puck Bay region. Fishers are constantly going out at sea, most of the time coming back empty-handed. Unfortunately, despite the lack of fish, we have still recorded some cases of seabird bycatch. We took the chance to try out our latest measures to keep seabirds out of gillnets!

As the catches were unprofitable, if it wasn’t for the project agreement, it’s very likely the fishers would have left ports much less frequently – but this was really an opportunity for us to check whether the net lights faced any operational issues in deployment.

Seabird bycatch was recorded despite the lack of fish, highlighting the importance to optimize our proposed measures to tackle the problem © Anetta Ameryk/Morski Instytut Rybacki

We had hoped to do similar testing with the West Pomeranian coastal fleet targetting herring, but this fleet had already switched on to fishing other species. Therefore in that region we will undertake all our studies in the autumn and winter of 2016/17.

The first light we tried out with the Puck Bay fleet was the YML-1000 lights we described in the previous entry. In the video below, you can see the fishermen attaching the lights to the nets.

Unfortunately, the lamps do seem to be affecting the fishing operations considerably. The boats need to slow down when deploying and retrieving the nets. When we deploy the nets, each lamp has to be held by hand in order to prevent them from hooking on the meshes below (see video below).

On top of that, when retrieving, it is necessary to hold the lights so as not to hit the deck which might risk damaging.

Over the summer, we’ll discuss these issues with other projects that have deployed net lights to see if there are helpful ways to work around the difficulties and speed up the operation.

In more encouraging news, after 240 hours of use, which is the time the nets were in the water, the lamps powered by two AA batteries were still shining. Battery life will be a very important part of the economic efficiency of this measure. And it is not only the cost of the battery, but the time needed to replace them through the entire set of nets.

Based on these initial results, it was clear it would be challenging to obtain statistically verifiable data on seabird bycatch for the time being. After 10 cruises, while it was useful to examine the operational issues with our measures, we decided to cease observations for the season.

The rest of the studies will be conducted at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2017. Feel free to sign up if you don’t want to miss our updates!

Poland

Seabird Task Force sets sail in Portugal

By Ana Almeida, Marine Conservation Officer at SPEA (BirdLife in Portugal).

Although accidental bycatch of seabirds is still largely unknown in Portugal, there are evidences from pioneering studies that prove that gillnets, longlines and purse seines are the fishing gear with the biggest impact. This is why BirdLife International, along with SPEA, is going to test some innovative mitigation measures to reduce seabird bycatch, never tried before in the Atlantic.

We will learn from the experience of our colleagues in Lithuania trialing high contrast panels. These will be attached to the nets, and hopefully will make it more visible for the birds, allowing them to swim around the nets, and avoiding being caught and consequently drown.

High contrast panels will be one of the measures we will try to tackle seabird bycatch.

We are now preparing all the logistic side of things in order to be ready to deploy the modified nets in the water in the next winter, since that is the crucial period for bycatch in Portugal.

This preparation takes much more work than it seems at first sight. We have to find the right materials to build the panels for them to be resistant in saltwater. Then we have to actually build them and we will need a big number of them since the panels are placed every 4 meters in the nets!

Where will we work?

Berlengas is a small archipelago located about 10 km off Peniche in central Portugal. Its geographic location converges both Atlantic and Mediterranean temperate climates, which, associated with the intense seasonal upwelling described for the area, is the basis of a high biological productivity area.

In fact, Berlengas archipelago surrounding is one of the richest marine ecosystems across Portuguese coastal waters. This underlies the fact for Peniche being one of Portugal´s most important fishing port, whether measured in terms of the volume of landings or the total numbers of fishers.

Peniche has a diversified fleet in which the small scale fisheries represents a significant proportion, with set gillnets, pots and demersal longlining being some of the main fishing gears.

Being such a productive area, it supports the Berlengas breeding population of Cory´s Shearwater (Calonectris borealis) as well as a large number of migratory and wintering seabirds such as the endangered Balearic Shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus), Razorbill (Alca torda) and Common Murre (Uria aalge).

This spatial overlapping between fisheries and seabirds, make this area an important target for tackling seabird bycatch.

Cory’s Shearwater is one of the species incidentally caught in fishing lines © Pedro Geraldes

Working with fishers

All this work has to be done in close collaboration with fishers, and taking in consideration their own expertise. Moreover, this project not only will test the mitigation measures and its efficiency reducing bycatch, but will also analyze how practicable the measures are, from an economic point of view.

This means that we are looking for mitigation measures that reduce bycatch, but do not reduce fish catches. For that, we will have to measure different economic variables and carefully plan all the data we will be collecting on the vessels.

We look forward to starting the real work at sea, and look forward to letting you know about the results!

Portugal

The Seabid Task Force starts on-board surveys on Spanish long-liners to assess seabird by catch

After some weeks of continuous northern winds, the 2^nd and 3^rd of March the first STF surveys on-board of demersal long-liners in Spain were conducted. One observer of SEO/BirdLife shipped on a demersal long-liner based in Llançà, one of northernmost Catalan harbours next to the Spanish-French border. The main target of the fishing boat was the Blackspot seabream Pagellus bogaraveo. These first surveys were worth improving the methodology, getting familiar with it and collecting the first data. We characterised the fishing gear configuration and effort and observed no seabird bycatch. We also enjoyed of a very tasty on-board meal, which was worth recovering strength and knowing the fishermen from a personal point of view.

Black legged kitty-wake *Rissa tridactyla* following the vessel during the operations

Only very few Yellow-legged gulls Larus michahellis, Mediterranen gulls L. melanocephalus and Kittywakes Rissa tridactyla followed the vessel during the operations. Seabirds ate discarded baits and one kittiwake stole one bait when setting but was not hooked. The shearwaters (only Mediterranean, Puffinus yelkouan) were very scarce during the operations, and most individuals were observed in coastal waters when returning to port.

During the following weeks we will keep contacting long-liner skippers and continue with on-board observations.

Spain

Lessons on gillnet bycatch: the US case study

Gillnet fisheries are not uniform in nature across the globe – different species are targeted via different mesh sizes, fishing techniques and positioning of the net in the water column.Gillnet bycatch is also not a problem restricted to a single country or even sea basin – there are recorded instances all over the world. What we hope, however, is that a suite of mitigation measures can be devised to reduce bird bycatch wherever gillnet fishing occurs. The work of the Seabird Task Force in Lithuania is our first step on this path.Some of the only research done to date on seabird bycatch mitigation in gillnet fisheries was done in the Puget Sound, USA, by Ed Melvin, a well-respected seabird bycatch specialist based at Washington State University. His work, back in the 1990s, resulted in the development and adoption of modified bycatch-reducing nets in the sockeye salmon fishery that operates in the Sound.

In September 2014, Rory Crawford, Senior Policy Officer with the BirdLife International Marine Programme, and Rex Harrison, a salmon gillnet fisherman from Filey Bay in the UK, went to the Puget Sound on a ‘GAP2 Exchange’ to meet with sockeye fishermen, the management authorities, and Ed Melvin himself – all with a view to understanding more about what knowledge we might be able to take back and apply to other fisheries. This video, produced by GAP2, neatly summarises Rory and Rex’s trip, and highlights BirdLife’s approach to finding solutions to bird bycatch – one of collaboration and mutual understanding with fishermen.Many thanks to GAP2 for funding Rory and Rex’s exchange trip, and for promoting collaboration between fishermen, scientists, NGOs and policy makers.

Lithuania