Conservationists are concerned the recent tightening of commercial fishing bycatch rules to provide better protections to critically endangered seabirds could be “too little, too late”.
Since October 1, the start of the fishing season, surface longline boats have had to either set gear at night, use bird-scaring devices and weighted lines, or use hook shields to prevent seabird bycatch.
New Zealand is widely considered “the seabird capital of the world”.
Nearly half of all seabirds species are found in our waters but bycatch has been killing several critically endangered birds.
Some of the biggest concerns are for the Antipodean albatross, a species that has continued to decline in numbers since a population crash in the early 2000s.
World Wildlife Fund NZ chief executive Kayla Kingdon-Bebb claimed the number one cause of decline for the species was a result of accidental death due to bycatch.
“The decline, of course, was avoidable.”
Two independent studies for the Department of Conservation projected that by 2050 there would be just 400 breeding pairs of Antipodean albatross left.
The studies also found efforts to lift survival rates would likely slow, but not stop their decline.
Kingdon-Bebb said conservationists “would have loved to see these changes implemented decades ago when we first advocated for them”.
The new rules would “really reduce” the risk from longline fishing, Ministry for Primary Industries fisheries management director Emma Taylor said.
However, when asked to quantify that, she said it was “difficult to know exactly how much difference it will make”.
Commercial fishing is a $5 billion-dollar industry in New Zealand and companies say that seabird bycatch practices were improving on vessels before the new rules came in.
Seafood NZ chief executive Lisa Futschek said organisations were “doing all we can to protect those species”.
“Our fishers do not want to capture seabirds, let alone those that are threatened with extinction.”
She said changing practices for the new protection measures had been “complex”.
Several other critically endangered species were also being accidentally caught as bycatch on fishing vessels.
Cameras on inshore vessels have revealed bycatch was much higher than previously thought, particularly for orca, Hawksbill turtles, Hector’s dolphins and albatrosses.
But Fisheries Minister Shane Jones said he would not put cameras on deep sea trawlers.
He added he would not want any of the footage from the cameras in service to be made public due to there being a “predictable narrative”.
“I’m fearful that they are [videos are] going to fall into the wrong hands,” he told 1News.
“Oh, no doubt it’ll be taken out of context and can easily be misused.”
When asked if the public had a right to see the footage he said: “I think the public should have confidence that the regulators know what they’re doing.”
Jones also said: “I don’t want individual fishing boats caught up in that political spat.”
He also acknowledged some vessels that had to adapt to the new rules had been “concerned about the balance of costs, their jobs, their debts on boats” but he also said albatrosses were “majestic” birds.
When protected seabirds are caught on fishing vessels with cameras they have to be held up to the camera to be recorded, and then returned to the sea.
