Chile moves to protect seabirds
29/09/2019
The Chilean Government has taken a vital step towards preventing thousands of needless seabird deaths.
At the end of August, the government introduced new regulations that will require a number of major trawler fleets to implement measures that reduce seabird bycatch. This not only includes the use of bird-scaring lines, which keep birds away from the trawl cables that can break their wings and kill them, but also other measures, including 'snatch blocks' to reduce the risk of albatrosses colliding with the net monitoring cable, and limits to discarding offal, which attracts birds to fishing vessels in the first place.
These regulations are the culmination of over a decade of work from our Albatross Task Force (ATF) team in Chile, who have worked alongside fishers, researchers and the national observer programmes of the Chilean Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP) and the Undersecretariat of Fisheries (SUBPESCA) to draw attention to the issue of seabird bycatch by testing and demonstrating the simple ways that these unnecessary deaths can be avoided.
This isn't just an important landmark for BirdLife International's work in Chile, but for the ATF programme worldwide. Of the original 10 target fisheries to introduce bycatch regulations, which are the fundamental foundation of long-term and sustained reductions in seabird bycatch, this is the last.
"It will obviously be important that these regulations are matched with adequate monitoring and compliance efforts from the authorities," said Rory Crawford, Bycatch Programme Manager for the BirdLife Marine Programme. "So far though, the signs are very good that this will be the case in Chile. We'd like to congratulate the Chilean Government for introducing these regulations and look forward to their monitoring showing that they have resulted in many more albatrosses continuing to soar over the oceans in years to come."
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