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title: "Assessing bycatch of Black-footed Albatrosses using genetics"
---

# Assessing bycatch of Black-footed Albatrosses using genetics

*![Black footed Albatross Colleen Laird](https://acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Albatrosses/B/Black_footed/Black-footed_Albatross_Colleen_Laird.jpg)  
Black-footed Albatross by Colleen Laird‎ of Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (*[*ABUN*](https://abun4nature.org/)*) for World Albatross Day, 19 June 2020*

 Jessie Beck ([Alaska Fisheries Science Center](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/about/alaska-fisheries-science-center), Seattle, Washington, USA) and colleagues have published open access in the journal [*Biological Conservation*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/biological-conservation) on quantifying bycatch by US Fisheries of [Near Threatened](https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/black-footed-albatross-phoebastria-nigripes) Black-footed Albatrosses *Phoebastria nigripes* using genetic markers.

 The paper’s highlights (unusually there is no abstract) follow:

 Characterizing the demographic impact of seabird bycatch is challenging.

 Black-footed albatross are [*sic*] accidentally caught in fisheries throughout the Pacific Ocean.

 U.S.fisheries collect seabird bycatch [data] that can be analyzed for population-of-origin.

 We identify disproportionate bycatch from specific breeding colonies.

 Genetic assignment using targeted genetic markers can tease apart populations in species with low genetic differentiation.

 **jReference:**

 Beck, J.N., Baetscher, D.S., Tobin, C., Edwards, S.V., Yung Wa Sin, S., Fitzgerald, S., Tuttle, V.J., Peschon, J. & Larson, W.A. 2025.  Quantifying impacts of seabird bycatch using genetic assignment: a case study of black-footed albatross in U.S. fisheries.  [*Biological Conservation* 303. 110965](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320725000023).

 *John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels,10 March 2025*