The Cost of Seabirds

By Anonymous

Seafarers and seabirds have had an uneasy relationship since long before Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ancient mariner weighed in on the matter of killing an albatross, but for the modern fishing industry, it is a quantifiable problem: accidental catches of seabirds have devastated some bird populations, scientists say, and strict controls on by-catch can be costly. Chris Wilcox of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Hobart, Tasmania, and Josh Donlan of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, have come up with an innovative solution: “biodiversity offsetting,” under which fishers could offset losses from by-catch by paying levies to fund efforts tackling other, often more serious problems facing the same bird populations.

Recognizing that flesh-footed shearwater (Puffinus carneipes) populations on Lord Howe Island, Australia, faced the twin threats of fishing and rat predation, Wilcox and Donlan compared two scenarios: banning fishing within 750 kilometers of the island (which would close down some fisheries) and imposing levies on fishers that would pay for efforts to erradicate invasive rats. In both scenarios, the annual growth rate for the shearwater population increased by more than 60 percent over a period of 20 years. The team estimated that the fishing ban would cost approximately US$3 million in lost revenue, whereas eradicating the rats would cost US$500,000.

“As well as funding actions that effectively offset the by- catch, the levy would encourage fishers to seek innovative ways of avoiding by-catch,” says Wilcox. According to Wilcox, nearly half of the bird species considered endangered by IUCN-The World Conservation Union are jeopardized by fishing, and many of those species also face danger from invasive species.

-New Scientist, 28 July; and CSIRO press release, 19 July. (M.E.P.)

Copyright Heldref Publications Oct 2007

(c) 2007 Environment. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.