Jean-Baptiste Thiebot (Centre d’Études Biologiques de Chizé,Villiers-en-Bois, France) and colleagues have published this month in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems on the threats the tiny population of Amsterdam Albatrosses Diomedea amsterdamensis faces from longline fisheries.

The paper’s abstract follows:

1. Industrial fisheries represent one of the most serious threats worldwide to seabird conservation.  Death of birds in fishing operations (i.e. bycatch) has especially adverse effects on populations of albatrosses, which have extremely low fecundity.

2. The single population worldwide of Amsterdam albatross (Diomedea amsterdamensis) comprises only 167 individuals and risks considerable decline over the mid-term from additional mortality levels potentially induced by fisheries.  The priority actions listed in the current conservation plan for this species included characterizing the longline fisheries operating within its range, dynamically analysing the overlap between albatrosses and these fisheries, and providing fisheries management authorities with potential impact estimates of longline fisheries on the Amsterdam albatross.

3. During all life-cycle stages and year quarters the birds overlapped extensively with fishing effort in the southern Indian and Atlantic oceans.   Fishing effort, and consequently overlap score (calculated as the product of fishing effort and time spent by the birds in a spatial unit) was highest in July–September (45% of the hooks annually deployed). Just three fleets (Taiwanese, Japanese and Spanish) contributed to >98% of the overlap scores for each stage (72% from the Taiwanese fleet alone, on average).  Daily overlap scores were higher for the non-breeding versus the breeding stages (3-fold factor on average).

4. Based on previous bycatch rates for other albatross species, this study estimated that longline fisheries currently have the potential to remove ~2–16 individuals (i.e. ~5%) each year from the total Amsterdam albatross population, depending on whether bycatch mitigation measures were or were not systematically employed during the fishing operations.

5. Recent bycatch mitigation measures may be instrumental in the conservation of the Amsterdam albatross.  This study suggests three further key recommendations: (1) to focus conservation efforts on the austral winter; (2) to require all operating vessels to report ring recoveries; and (3) to allocate special regulation of fishing operations in the areas of peak bycatch risk for the Amsterdam albatrosses.”

Amsterdam Albatross off Amsterdam Island, photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Reference:

Thiebot, J.-B., Delord, K., Barbraud, C., Marteau, C. & Weimerskirch, H. 2015.  167 individuals versus millions of hooks: bycatch mitigation in longline fisheries underlies conservation of Amsterdam albatrosses.  Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems  DOI: 10.1002/aqc.2578  DOI: 10.1002/aqc.2578.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 August 2015

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) has been holding the 11th Regular Session of its Scientific Committee in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia over 5-13 August last and this week.

Working and Information Papers being tabled at the meeting on the issue of seabird mortality and mitigation measures are listed here by authors and title.

Baird K., Small, C., Bell, E., Walker, K., Elliot, G., Nicholls, D., Alderman, R., Scofield, P., Depp, L., Thomas, B. & Dias, M.P. 2015.  The overlap of threatened seabirds with reported bycatch areas between 25° and 30° South in the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission Area.  WCPFC-SC11-2015/ EB-WP-09.  18 pp.

Katsumata, N., Ochi, D., Matsunaga, H., Inoue, Y. & Minami, H. 2015.  At-sea experiment to develop the mitigation measures of seabirds for small longline vessels in the western North Pacific.  WCPFC-SC11-2015/ EB-WP-10. Rev. 1. 10 pp

Inoue, Y., Alderman, R., Taguchi, M., Sakuma, K., Kitamura, T., Phillips, R.A., Burg, T.M., Small, C., Sato, M., Papworth, W. & Minami, H. 2015.  Progress of the development of the DNA identification for the southern albatross bycatch in longline fishery.  WCPFC-SC11-2015/ EB- IP-09 Rev. 1.  22 pp.

Antipodean Albatross: at risk from longliners in the Pacific, photograph by Albatross Encounter

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement is being represented at the meeting by its Executive Secretary, Warren Papworth.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 August 2015

An occasional series in ACAP Latest News covers the appearance of albatrosses and petrels in art and literature in an endeavour to reach a wider audience.

Pierre Charles Baudelaire was a French poet whose most famous work Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), first published in 1857, "expresses the changing nature of beauty in industrializing Paris during the 19th century."

Charles Baudelaire ((9 April 1821 - 31 August 1867) photographed by Étienne Carjat, c. 1862

Baudelaire wrote a poem L'Albatros, based it seems on personal experience (click here).  A visit to the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris last month resulted in my finding the modest family grave in which he is buried, as well as a cenotaph in his honour – as illustrated here.

The Baudelaire family grave, as well as the poet, contains the remains of his stepfather, with whom he was estranged, and of his mother

The cenotaph was created in 1902 by the sculptor Jose de Charmoy.  It represents a recumbent shrouded figure lying in front of a column topped with a bust of the poet

 Baudelaire’s albatross poem follows, in its original French and as an English translation by Roy Campbell

L'Albatros

Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

The Albatross

Sometimes for sport the men of loafing crews
Snare the great albatrosses of the deep,
The indolent companions of their cruise
As through the bitter vastitudes they sweep.

Scarce have they fished aboard these airy kings
When helpless on such unaccustomed floors,
They piteously droop their huge white wings
And trail them at their sides like drifting oars.

How comical, how ugly, and how meek
Appears this soarer of celestial snows!
One, with his pipe, teases the golden beak,
One, limping, mocks the cripple as he goes.

The Poet, like this monarch of the clouds,
Despising archers, rides the storm elate.
But, stranded on the earth to jeering crowds,
The great wings of the giant baulk his gait.

Click here to view a video clip of an electronically animated Baudelaire reciting his albatross poem.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 August 2015

The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) held its 89th Meeting in Guayaquil, Ecuador from 22 June to 03 July 2015.  Dr Marco Favero, Chair of the ACAP Advisory Committee, represented the Agreement.  In coordination with the ACAP agenda and seabird matters, Dr Esteban Frere represented BirdLife International at the meeting.

In 2011 at its 82nd Meeting, the IATTC adopted Resolution C-11-02 entitled “Resolution to mitigate the impact on seabirds of fishing for species covered by the IATTC”.  This conservation measure, which is currently in place, requires vessels of more than 20 metres in length that fish within the application area to use at least two of the mitigation measures from a two-column table

C-11-02, along with another on observer coverage, certainly addresses seabird bycatch by eastern Pacific longline fishing vessels. However, the resolution is now considered to be out-dated, requiring further amendments in order to (1) reflect the best-practice advice developed by the Agreement’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group, as well as (2) to be in line with conservation measures adopted by other tuna regional fisheries management organizations (tRFMOs), in particular the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).

At the 89th IATTC Commission Meeting the United States of America tabled a revised seabird conservation measure in line with that (CM 2012-07) adopted by the WCPFC in 2012.  The USA text with two separate application areas proposed for southern areas the simultaneous use of at least two of three measures (weighted branch lines, night setting and bird-scaring lines), whereas for northern areas proposed the use of at least two of the mitigation measures in a menu of options.

A bird-scaring line is deployed behind a Pacific longliner, photograph by Ed Melvin

Although not fully in line with ACAP best-practice advice, in particular for mitigation proposed for waters north of 23°N, the adoption of such a text would have implied significant progress compared to the seabird resolution currently in place. Regrettably, discussions on technical specifications and further discrepancies in the views regarding the application areas in the proposed text delayed consideration of the USA proposal at the meeting and finally prevented the adoption of a revised resolution.

ACAP is committed to continue the work with IATTC Parties in order to contribute to the further refinement of the proposal, and it looks forward to the final adoption of a seabird measure that incorporates the latest knowledge in mitigating seabird bycatch by fisheries.

Read an earlier posting on the IATTC’s 89th Meeting here.

Marco Favero, Chair, ACAP Advisory Committee, 10 August 2015