Seabird-fishery interactions revealed by bird-borne GPS and camera loggers

• Main Authors: 3rd World Seabird Conference 2021, Nishizawa, Bungo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Underline Science Inc. 2021
• Subjects: Animal Science; Fukushima; Pacific; National Institute of Polar Research
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48448/4xn7-rw25; https://underline.io/lecture/34572-seabird-fishery-interactions-revealed-by-bird-borne-gps-and-camera-loggers

Abstract: Albatrosses and petrels are often attracted to fishing vessels to feed on fishery discards and bait. Large numbers of seabirds are killed by drowning in longline fisheries after caught on baited hooks and in trawl fisheries after entangled in nets. However, little is known about the spatial-temporal overlap between individual birds and vessels and behaviors in relation to vessels. To examine these, we attached both GPS- and camera- loggers on two North Pacific albatross species; 15 black-footed albatrosses (Phoebastria nigripes) breeding on Torishima, Japan and 20 Laysan albatrosses (P. immutabilis) breeding on Oahu, Hawaii, during the early chick-rearing periods. Black-footed albatrosses concentrated mainly along the Izu chaine and some birds used off Fukushima 600 km away from the colony. Two birds of them encountered pole and line fishing vessels at the north of Torishima but did not follow them. Five Laysan albatrosses from Hawaii encountered fishing vessels at subtropical water close to their colony although they travelled over the North Pacific Transition Zones up to 800 km north of the colony. With clear images of these fishing vessels we identified as Hawaiian tuna/swordfish longliners. These Laysan albatrosses detected the longliners at an average distance of 5.4 km and followed them up to 5.3 hours. Our study indicates the usefulness of combining bird-borne GPS and camera loggers for studying fine-scale overlap between seabirds and fisheries and behaviors related to fishing vessels. Authors: Bungo Nishizawa¹, Takanori Sugawara², Jean‑Baptiste Thiebot¹, Lindsay Young³, Eric Vanderwerf³, Fumio Sato⁴, Naoki Tomita⁴, Hiroshi Minami⁵, Ken Yoda², Yutaka Watanuki⁶ ¹National Institute of Polar Research, ²Nagoya University, ³Pacific Rim Conservation, ⁴Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, ⁵National Research Institute of Far Seas Fisheries, ⁶Hokkaido University