Thursday July 25, 2024
PhysOrg —
Seabirds are among the most threatened creatures globally, often due to incidental mortality (bycatch) in fisheries. Several hundreds of thousands of seabirds are thought to be killed worldwide each year by two of the three main types of fishing gear—gillnets and longlines. However, the extent of global mortality in trawl fisheries has remained largely unknown until now.
A new study published this month (July 2024) in the journal Biological Conservation reveals alarming statistics. The team from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and RSPB combined bycatch totals from cable strikes and net captures from 25 monitored trawl fisheries and discovered that at least 44,000 seabirds are killed each year.
Lead author Professor Richard Phillips, a seabird ecologist at British Antarctic Survey, says, “This is an eye-watering statistic. Our findings show that 10 trawl fisheries catch in the order of hundreds of birds, seven fisheries caught thousands, and one fishery caught tens of thousands of birds annually.