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Incidental capture of seabirds in Argentinean side-haul trawlers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

L. L. TAMINI*
Affiliation:
Albatross Task Force Argentina, Programa Marino, Aves Argentinas, Matheu 1246/8, C. A. de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
L. N. CHAVEZ
Affiliation:
Albatross Task Force Argentina, Programa Marino, Aves Argentinas, Matheu 1246/8, C. A. de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
R. F. DELLACASA
Affiliation:
Albatross Task Force Argentina, Programa Marino, Aves Argentinas, Matheu 1246/8, C. A. de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
R. CRAWFORD
Affiliation:
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. BirdLife International Marine Programme.
E. FRERE
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral, CONICET. BirdLife International Marine Programme.
*
*Author for correspondence; email: tamini@avesargentinas.org.ar

Summary

Between April 2008 and July 2015, we conducted a total of 18 trips on five different side-haul trawlers fishing within the Argentine Exclusive Economic Zone, monitoring 486 hauls. We observed 100% of the hauls and monitored trawl cables for 136.7 hours, about 5% of the trawl effort, to identify the levels of seabird bycatch from net entanglements and collisions with trawl cables. A total of 35 net entanglements of White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis, Great Shearwaters Ardenna gravis, Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris and Southern Royal Albatross Diomedea epomophora were recorded, all of which occurred during the autumn and winter. Additionally, 656 seabird collisions against trawl cables were recorded including 39 heavy, 96 medium and 521 light. Further, we recorded nine Black-browed Albatrosses and two Great Shearwaters potentially dead. Although in the study fishery the number of deaths in the trawl cables could surpass the number of birds incidentally killed in nets, the mortality rate caused by the latter type of interaction far exceeds those observed in nets from other trawl fisheries operating in the Patagonian Shelf. Fortunately, 26% of the seabirds entangled in the net were recovered and released alive, which indicates that awareness and training in safe bird handling and release may improve captured seabird survival rates. The main objectives of this work is to highlight a little-studied source of seabird mortality by entanglement, to generate discussion on potential technical mitigation measures for side-haul trawl fisheries, and to propose crew training in safe handling and release of seabirds as an immediate mitigation measure.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of BirdLife International

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