Time for an end to seabird deaths

Photo: Forest & Kim StarrThe RSPB and BirdLife International today (September 15) will be urging the European Fisheries Commissioner, Joe Borg, to take action to prevent the deaths of over 200,000 seabirds which are killed in fisheries in European waters every year.

With at least one of the impacted seabird species so threatened that it potentially faces extinction within 40 years, the RSPB and BirdLife remain extremely worried that the European Commission has delayed the introduction of measures that may save these birds.

Dr Euan Dunn, the head of the RSPB's marine policy team, said: "We are highly concerned about the Commission's apparent lack of commitment to reduce the deaths of seabirds caught in longline and gillnet fisheries in European waters."

Of most concern are those species that are either facing global extinction or those with the majority of their breeding populations in Europe. In particular, the Balearic shearwater, which is confined as a nesting bird to Spain's Balearic Islands, is predicted to become extinct within 40 years.

It is believed that bycatch in longline fisheries is a significant factor in the decline of this Critically Endangered bird to a precarious population of only 2,000 pairs. Up to 50 individuals have been caught on hooks on a single longline.

The Balearic shearwater, a dove-sized relative of the albatross, is becoming a regular visitor to British seas, especially to the English Channel and Irish Sea in late summer. Experts believe the birds are traveling further north along the coast of Europe as they search for food following the climate-driven collapse of sardine and anchovy fisheries further south.

Dr Euan Dunn added: "Globally, seabirds are the most visible indicators of ocean health and yet, globally, they are declining faster than any other group of birds. We have known for many years about the deaths of albatrosses and other seabirds in longline fisheries in the Southern Ocean, but I suspect that many people would be aghast to learn that a species rarer than the tiger is being threatened with extinction by fisheries operating in European waters."

"We have been waiting for a decade for the EC to take action to reduce the toll of seabirds in Europe's fisheries. Further delays will result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of birds. The technical adjustments to fishing practices needed to prevent this bycatch are often very simple but the political will to apply them has been lacking for far too long.'

Other species affected in European waters include:

*the great shearwater, which suffers an exceptionally high annual bycatch rate of 50,000 birds in the Galician longline hake fishery on the Gran Sol grounds to the west of Ireland the Cory's shearwater, which, according to Maltese fishermen, may suffer an annual bycatch rate of up to 10 per cent of the population in local longline fisheries. Malta is Joe Borg's home country

*Steller's eider, a species of duck facing global extinction, is among the victims of gill-nets in the Baltic Sea. Other birds affected in both the Baltic and North Sea regions include divers, grebes and smew, a type of duck.