The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported a dramatic rise in the hooking of Black-footed and Laysan albatross by longline vessels.

The service, which monitors interactions between the birds and fishing vessels based in Hawai’i, reports that in the first quarter of 1997 alone, observers in the fishery saw more Laysan albatross hooked than they saw in all of 1996. The first quarter 1997 figure was 46 birds; for 1996, the total number of Laysan observed to be taken by the fishery was 31.