Fishing gear night setting is the best strategy to prevent accidental seabird bycatches
Fishing gear night setting is the best strategy to prevent seabirds from being accidentally captured by longliners in the Mediterranean, according to a new article published in the journal PLOS ONE by the experts Jacob González-Solís and Vero Cortés, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute of the UB (IRBio).
Between 160,000 and 300,000 seabirds die each year around the world due accidental bycatch in longliners. Night setting, tori lines to scare birds and putting weight on the baits are effective strategies that reduced by more than 90 % the accidental catch of marine birds in fishing areas worldwide (Southern Ocean, Alaska, South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, Australia, etc.). Mitigation strategies have been applied in the Southern Hemisphere for decades to protect the populations of different species of albatrosses and petrels. Tori lines to scare birds are used in Antarctic and Subantarctic areas of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).