A depressing read, but one which shows the need for international
cooperation.
Albatross falls victim to modern mariners
By ANDREW DARBY
Friday 11 January 2002
On a gale-swept rock island off Cape Horn this summer, Australian
biologist Graham Robertson cut a fish hook out of the wing of an
albatross.
Increasingly Southern Ocean seabirds are falling victim to long-line
fishing, and although the big black-browed albatross treated by Dr
Robertson and colleague Kieren Lawton was injured, it survived.
As they checked through a crowded breeding colony on top of the Chilean
islet, Ildefonso, they found fishing lines hanging out of other birds'
throats, and hooks caught in wings. More were embedded in nests, where
they had been thrown up.
Similar finds are being reported from other remote islands that
otherwise bear little human trace. On Bird Island in the South Atlantic
last year, British Antarctic survey scientists found 67 hooks within a
decreasing colony of the world's biggest seabird, the wandering
albatross.
Others were reported on South Africa's Marion Island.
The fishing tackle is a macabre sign of the crisis facing these birds.
Among 24 recognised albatross species, 21 are either in decline or of
unknown status, reports the federal Environment Department. Some
populations have fewer than 100 breeding pairs, making their survival
precarious.
The evidence Dr Robertson found on Ildefonso also confirmed his belief
that in order to save Australia's albatrosses, the problem had to be
tackled on the other side of the globe.
Seabirds know no human boundary, and many routinely circle Antarctica.
Up to six albatross species from our region are likely to use the oceans
off South America.
"My feeling is that down the track we're going to remove the problem in
Australian waters," Dr Robertson said. "But we won't really stem the
slide of several species unless we tackle South American waters."
Scientists at the last meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of
Antarctic Marine Living Resources, in Hobart heard, up to 379,000
seabirds were killed by the illegal Southern Ocean toothfish fishery in
the past five years. At such rates, extinction threatens many species,
reports the commission's scientific committee.
The commission imposed a string of strict mitigation measures on its own
legal fishers, such as setting lines at night so the seabirds are less
likely to dive for bait and become hooked. But Dr Robertson said even
legal fishers in South America lacked any understanding of the severity
of the problem.
Dr Robertson, of the Environment Department's Antarctic Division, and
three other Australians went to Chile for what he described as
"capacity-building" - laying the foundations for a scientific
understanding of the human impact on albatrosses in the region.
Australia last year hosted the signing of an international Agreement on
the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, which obliges member
countries to conserve and protect the birds under the Bonn Convention on
Migratory Species.
On Ildefonso and two other nearby islands, Australian and Chilean
scientists put the agreement to work gathering detailed data for the
first time about black-browed and grey-headed albatrosses at their three
known South American breeding sites.
For Dr Robertson and Mr Lawton, this meant jumping into the sea from a
boat and swimming on to Ildefonso's rocky shore. Climbing 45 metres to
its one-kilometre-wide flat top, they endured weeks of gales sometimes
strong enough to blow birds off their nests. They fitted satellite
trackers to the birds, began a census, and took blood samples for DNA
testing.
Dr Robertson said initial results showed birds from each island probably
shared foraging grounds in neighbouring waters. The findings will give
the kind of baseline information that will support mitigation work in
the future.
This story was found at:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2002/01/11/FFX61U8F9WC.html
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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