Scare tactics pact to save seabirds

Deaths of South Pacific seabirds from large-scale fishing practices may be cut when a New Zealand-Peru bird protection agreement takes flight.

New Zealand's Southern Seabird Solutions and the Peruvian Institute of Fisheries Research have agreed to work together to reduce seabird deaths due to long-line fishing.

Seabirds such as the petrel and albatross are often caught when they dive to feed off bait from underwater hooks from long-line fishing boats.

A Southern Seabird Solutions spokesman said tens of thousands of birds were killed in the southern ocean each year, numbers which might be reduced if bird-scaring lines or weighted hooks were used.

The organisation was formed in 2002 to reduce seabird deaths, an aim which required transnational co-operation due to the migratory habits of seabirds.

The trust works with groups from Southern Hemisphere nations to help transfer knowledge, technology and skills between fishers.

The agreement is to be signed at the Peruvian Embassy in Wellington next month, when the groups' first joint project too will be announced.

Fishing methods to reduce deaths include night line setting, reduced deck lighting, blue-dyed baits, sound deterrents, and offal discharge away from settings.

Albatrosses spend at least 85 per cent of their lives at sea and produce only one chick every two years which both parents feed, so if one parent dies the chick starves.

Some species of albatrosses have declined by 90 per cent over the past 60 years.

- NZPA