I am writing in response to your December 1998 editorial, “Albatross Workshop Won’t Save Birds.” I was disappointed by the headline on this editorial, especially since I was the workshop’s coordinator. Although your editorial mentioned that the Black-footed Albatross Workshop had taken place, there was no mention of the workshop’s recommendations. I would therefore like to provide some perspective on the purpose and importance of the workshop to demonstrate how the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is taking a logical approach to solving the seabird/fishery interaction problem.
If the council issues new regulations requiring the use of mitigation devices on fishing vessels without demonstrable evidence that they work, then it risks legal action by fishermen and vessel owners on the grounds that such devices are not justified. All changes in fishing regulations promulgated by the council must undergo a Regulatory Flexibility Analysis to gauge their impacts on small businesses. The Hawai`i longline vessels certainly qualify as small business entities and would be able to legally challenge any regulations implemented by the council. If the council does not have good information on mitigation techniques and their impacts on fishing and fishermen’s livelihoods, then legal challenges to regulations would likely succeed.
Given that the National Marine Fisheries Service implemented ineffective regulations to minimize bird interactions in the Alaskan fishery, it is in this council’s best interest to investigate why the mitigation measures used by the Alaskan fishery failed rather than to implement the same ineffective mitigation measures in Hawai`i. Further, the council needs to assess the fishery-related mortality for albatross in perspective with other mortality sources for the albatrosses. For instance, albatross are regularly killed by collisions with aircraft and other structures on the breeding colonies in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It seems reasonable that albatross mortality, whether it occurs at sea or at the breeding colonies, needs to be investigated and from these investigations appropriate actions can be taken to reduce or stop the morality. The proceedings from the workshop and the continued publications from its participants will provide the scientific and legal justification for agencies like the council and NMFS to take action.
Until this year, there was no centralized database containing the myriad of data on Black-footed and Laysan albatrosses. Albatross records — collected over several decades by private researchers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — were scattered across the country, from Hawai`i to Washington, D.C., and remained unused in the files of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Bird-banding Laboratory, the Smithsonian Institution, and private researchers. The council workshop generated the need to create the banding database for workshop participants, although this type of activity lies outside the council’s area of responsibility. It is to the council’s credit that it has been instrumental in the creation of what amounts to the most comprehensive database for any seabird inhabiting the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
During the workshop, participants had access to more than 100,000 banding records of Black-footed albatross collected over a 60-year period. They used this data to develop their recommendations. After the workshop, the council gave this dabatase to the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Biological Resources Division in Honolulu for continued development. Any interested banding researcher should contact these offices for further information.
Compilation of the database was an important and necessary first step toward albatross conservation. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service can examine the banding data and formulate future banding efforts based on lessons from the past. Indeed, the first recommendation generated by the workshop participants was to finalize, develop, and curate a relational database for banding records.
The participants also recommended that a population-monitoring program be implemented at breeding sites to address the effects of longline fishing. Since albatross develop a pair bond for life, mated pairs and their offspring could be banded and the cohorts followed through time. If this information was routinely collected and analyzed, this mated pair index could provide a means of monitoring the effectiveness of mitigation devices.
Furthermore, the workshop participants recommended that the council develop mitigation measures, appropriate to the Hawaiian fisheries, to prevent Black-footed albatrosses from being hooked and to make a similar study on Laysan albatrosses. Further, the participants suggested that the council obtain estimates of seabird mortality from foreign fishing effort in the North Pacific and from U.S. fisheries, such as that in Alaska. Finally, the participants recommended that a follow-up workshop be convened in Honolulu in May 2000.
Clearly, holding a workshop of this type will not save birds per se, but it did provide a forum for the problem to be addressed and for consideration of the whole suite of actions necessary to safeguard the albatross populations of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. This includes having a means of measuring population change and the effectiveness of mitigation methods. The other council project on mitigation methods is underway and should be completed by mid-1999. We realize that albatross will continue to be at risk until all the pieces of the plan come together, but we have only one chance to get this right, otherwise we risk alienating the fishermen as well as the conservation community. We believe this problem can be solved, provided we have the assistance and support of the Hawai`i-based longline fisherman.
Kathy Cousins, coordinatorBlack-footed Albatross Population Biology WorkshopWestern Pacific Regional Fishery Management CouncilHonolulu
Patricia Tummons replies: Cousins and I have no argument on the central point of the editorial: the council responsible for regulating the Hawai`i longline fishery has taken no action yet that requires fishers to reduce the number of seabirds killed.
In an effort to justify this inaction, Cousins takes an unfair shot at the Alaskan fishery regulations, which she describes as “failed.” A little background may be helpful:
After the Alaska fishery exceeded the incidental take allowed of Short-tailed albatross, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council imposed regulations requiring regulated vessels to adopt one of several techniques that might reduce the take of birds. This fell short of being the option favored by conservationists, which would have required use of those techniques known to have best effect in the Southern Ocean. There, nations such as Australia and New Zealand have required boats to employ devices such as poles with distracting streamers, called tori poles. As a sop to some in the fishery, the North Pacific council took the meeker step of requiring the boats to just do something — anything. As one person familiar with the fishery said, a boat could tow a toothpick and be in compliance with the Alaskan rules.
Given that, it is hardly surprising that recently two Short-tailed albatross were killed in the fishery. This, apparently, is the “failure” to which Cousins refers. But the Alaskan failure is more to be commended than the “success” of the Western Pacific Council, which lies in the perfect avoidance of any regulation.
In any case, giving the lie to Cousins’ claim that the council has “just one opportunity” to get the regulations right, as a result of the recent Short-tailed takes, amendments to the Alaskan regulations are now being proposed. Among other things, the North Pacific Council is considering requiring larger vessels: to deploy longlines underwater, so that there is less opportunity for birds to be exposed to hooks; to add weights to lines to prevent them from resurfacing; and to deploy a streamer line or bird buoy (towed) to help keep birds out of harm’s way.
To be sure, the Hawai`i longliners are not the sole source of albatross kills. One of the largest contributors to albatross mortality has to be the distant-water fleet fishing in international waters of the North Pacific. The United States should lead the way in calling for bird-avoidance techniques to be adopted as part of international protocols governing fishing on the high seas. Unfortunately, until such time as such techniques are made mandatory on the U.S. fleet, any calls by us for action on the part of the international vessels rings hollow.
It is commendable that the Western Pacific council has sponsored the Black-footed albatross population workshop and is conducting research on bird-avoidance methods, but, as Cousins herself acknowledges, this isn’t saving birds.
Volume 9, Number 8 February 1999
Volume 9, Number 8 February 1999
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