Albatross-fisheries interactions in Patagonian shelf waters

SCHIAVINI ADRIÁN CARLOS MIGUEL; FRERE ESTEBAN; GANDINI PATRICIA; GARCÍA NÉSTOR ANÍBAL; CRESPO ENRIQUE ALBERTO

Albatross Biology and Conservation

Surrey Beatty & Sons

Lugar: Chipping Norton; Año: 1998; p. 208 - 213

Patagonian waters attract several species of albatrosses during their breeding end post-breeding periods:Wandering, Royal, Black-browed and Grey-headed Albatrosses are the most important of them The main fisheries that take albatrosses as bycatch in Patagonian waters are longline fisheries for Patagonian tootfish and trawl fisheries for hake and shrimp. Twenty?four trawlers are reported to use net monitor cables which are known to kill albatrosses during collisions. Of the 199 longline vessels currently operating from Patagonian harbours, 17 vessel set lines manually and two set lines automatically (autoline), only the autoline vessels use seabird bycatch mitigation measures and bird scaring lines and streamers are the only measure currently being adopted. During the autumn of 1995 manual-set longline vessels commenced fishing in the CCAMLR area, which commences 650 nm east of the Argentine coast. For the 18 month period between 1994 and mid 1995 a total of 3972 longline fishing operations (sets and hauls) took place in Patagonian shelf waters and the CCAMLR area combined. Of the 2052 sets that look place in Patagonian waters 1921 were by autoline vessels and 131 were by manual-set vessels; an estimated 25386000 hooks were deployed for the period reported for both areas combined. Seabird catch rates reported for vessels fishing in CCAMLR waters (0.19-0.67 birds/1000 hooks) applied to vessels in Patagonian waters suggest that about 3832-13514 and 261-922 birds would have been killed by manual-set longline fisheries in Patagonian waters and in the CCAMLR area, respectively, during 1994-mid 1995