Seabirds face growing competition from fishing industry

[Cara J]

Seabirds around the world are increasingly finding themselves in competition for food with the fishing industry, researchers found, as fishing vessels increase their catches of potential seabird prey. “We’re fishing their food away,” said University of British Columbia fisheries professor Daniel Pauly, a principal investigator and founder of the university’s Sea Around Us initiative and an author on the recent paper in Current Biology. “We’re fishing the fish that contain the fat that they need to survive and grow.” Researchers found the Sea Around Us and the French National Center for Scientific Research found that between 1970 and 2010, annual seabird food consumption decreased from 70 million tons to 57 million tons. Meanwhile, fishing vessels increased their catches of potential seabird prey from an average of 59 million tons in the 1970s and ’80s to 65 million tons per year in recent years. “Even though there are far fewer seabirds now than there were before,” Pauly said, “the competition between humans and seabirds has not been reduced.” Seabirds have experienced a 70 percent decline in the past seven decades, from the California Coast to the Mediterranean Sea, researchers found, making them the most threatened bird group. The declines included dramatic [...]

View the full article