Seabirds

Tori lines © Crown

The New Zealand seafood industry is proactively working to minimise seabird by-catch.

The main problems occur in the longline fisheries when the line is being set. The birds follow the boats and dive for the bait fish as they are being dropped into the sea. The birds get caught on the hooks and drown.

The fishing industry is very concerned with this, and is taking a number of steps to avoid it. The first is to introduce the practice of setting and retrieving the lines at night when the birds are less likely to be active.

The second is to deploy what are called tori lines from the boat to discourage the birds. These consist of long line of streamer type material that is trailed behind the boat with a series of drop down pieces. These discourage the birds from flying through them. The longline is set under the streamers, as shown in the picture.

More information about seabird interaction with trawlers please visit the Deepwater Group's website »

New Zealand is a world leader in addressing the problem of seabird by-catch in long line fisheries. In 2000 the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council, the Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of Conservation hosted the first International Fisher's Forums on solving the problem of incidental capture of seabirds in longline fisheries.

The proceedings of this forum outlined:

• the issues identified by New Zealand and other countries
• the threat to seabird population numbers posed by unauthorised fishing operations or commercial fishers not operating within national or international agreed procedures
• current research into albatross and other seabird biology and population dynamics to assess the long term effects of incidental by-catch
• already developed mitigation devices and techniques including setting lines at night, weighting lines so they do not attract birds, use of bird scaring lines (or toris), and strategic offal dumping
• developing and using voluntary codes of practice e.g. the voluntary code now used by all the New Zealand domestic ling fishing fleet
• continuing research into mitigating devices or procedures such as using sonic cannons, or setting baits under water
• continued education of commercial fishers to recognise the importance of reducing incidental by-catch of seabirds.

Southern Seabird Solutions' website provides regular updates on efforts to reduce seabird by-catch.

Research into technology that will reduce seabird by-catch is on-going, with the development of using weighted lines indicating the potential to significantly reduce seabird by-catch.