Seabirds

The problem

New Zealand waters host the greatest variety of albatross and petrel species in the world, and are an important breeding ground for around eighty of these. Fishing is one of the greatest threats to these species’ survival.

Albatrosses and petrels forage widely and are attracted to the fish, offal and discards they often find around fishing vessels.

In longline fisheries, they risk getting caught on hooks and drowning as they try to eat bait from the lines. In trawl fisheries, the birds risk getting run over by heavy trawl cables as they chase offal and discards behind a trawler; or risk drowning in the net as they try to take fish from it.

Albatross and petrel species typically live a long time and produce few offspring. If a breeding adult dies, the chick almost always dies too, and the remaining partner may take several years to start nesting again with a new partner.

Current and future management

There are a number of measures in place to protect seabirds. These include a number of international obligations, New Zealand's National Plan of Action for seabirds, and new measures such as MFish's seabird standard.

New Zealand's International Obligations

New Zealand has a number of international obligations around seabirds and fishing. These include: 

• Convention on Migratory Species (CMS); 
• Agreement for the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP); and 
• FAO International Plan of Action for Reducing the Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries (IPOA).

2004 National Plan of Action (NPOA)

In response to the IPOA, New Zealand developed a National Plan of Action to Reduce the Incidental Catch of Seabirds in New Zealand Fisheries (NPOA) in 2004.

Its goals are: 

• To ensure the long-term viability of protected seabird species is not threatened by fishing operations in New Zealand waters or by New Zealand flagged vessels in the high seas; and 
• To further reduce the effects of fishing on these species as far as practicable.

The NPOA allowed fishers to manage their seabird by-catch through voluntary Codes of Practice. But it said that if voluntary measures did not work, the government would introduce regulations.

After three years, the voluntary approach has had most success in the Japan joint venture tuna, and ling autoline fisheries.

 Download the 2004 NPOA Seabirds (PDF 290KB)

New Measures

The government is now setting up regulations and/or processes to achieve its NPOA goals across all of New Zealand’s fisheries.

This will involve: 

• Setting clear seabird by-catch limits in New Zealand fisheries; 
• Assessing whether a fishery will meet these limits without intervention; 
• If intervention is needed, assessing whether a voluntary approach will be enough to meet the by-catch limits, or whether regulations are required; 
• A transparent process for monitoring the fishery’s performance against its seabird by-catch limits.

The only reliable and comprehensive way of checking fisheries against set by-catch limits is through observer coverage and subsequent modelling of by-catch data.

Reliable performance monitoring may mean higher observer coverage than at present, the costs of which will need to be borne by industry.

Over time, other monitoring methods (like electronic monitoring) may be allowed as an alternative to observer coverage.

The Ministry of Fisheries’ new seabird standard will set seabird by-catch limits for fisheries, and the procedures for monitoring these.

These limits will clearly state the level of environmental effect deemed acceptable by government.

Current Regulations

 F361 - Seabird Scaring Devices – Circular Issued Under Authority of the Fisheries (Commercial Fishing) Amendment Regulations 2006 (PDF 344KB)

 F414 - Fisheries (Seabird Scaring Devices Minimum Standard and Procedures) Notice 2007 (PDF 84KB)

 F429 - Fisheries (Seabird Sustainability Measures—Surface Longlines) Notice 2008 (PDF 48KB)

 F441 - Fisheries (Seabird Sustainability Measures—Bottom Longlines) Notice (No. 2) 2008 (PDF 59KB)