Also read Laine's Fish Factor column
6/05/06
New series of Alaska bird guidesThe industry has again taken the lead to help fishermen identify and keep sea birds away from fishing gear.
A new series of colorful placards identifies 51 species of birds that could be encountered on the fishing grounds.
"These things have on the backs, life size outlines of the beaks of the birds so can be identified by fishermen or observers. We've found that these are very popoular with the fishermen and we've got some real bird watching fishermen out there and it tends to raise their consciousness and has been a very successful series."
Thorne Smith is director of the North Pacific Longline Association. The new series is a collaboration with other industry groups and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The partnership has also produced guides in English and Russian to help fishermen and on board observers identify three types of endangered shortailed albatross. Accidentally catching just four of those in two years could close a fishery.
Thorne Smith "We have not gotten close to those limits happily but they are out there. Whether it would result in a closure of our fishery, I don't know, but it is a possibility. So it's something we take very seriously and are very careful about. Longliners already use avoidance measures to keep birds away from baited hooks.
"The streamer lines we deploy over our batied hooks while we're setting htem are extremely effective and we've reduced our incidental take of birds eight fold and have not taken a shortailed albatross since 1998."
The group has also provided guides to identify and avoid the world's most endangered whale - right whales.
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