ATF instructors’ work is amazing and something to keep smiling about. Apart from testing seabird bycatch mitigation measures, ATF instructors have other forms of entertainment that keeps them refreshed at all times.
A normal day starts with breakfast wonderfully prepared by the wonderful ship’s cook. This breakfast is often served with a fresh fruit carefully selected from the bountiful gardens under the African sky. This meal is shared with officers and crew with enough charisma to carry one through the day. Once this is done, a siren will go off to warn crew to take up their respective positions indicating the start of the day’s business, which is invariably fishing.
For an ATF instructor this will be the time for data collection and observation of the elusive and majestic albatross.
While at sea, instructors are graced with an untainted beauty of the deep blue ocean dressed elegantly with its living forms. The view is pristine and the feeling is serene. No-one can return from sea unchanged emotionally and spiritually. At times when the weather is really bad and conditions are not conducive to work under, instructors spend time educating crew by use of videos about seabird bycatch measures. This is often done in an informal and interactive way to allow participation from crew. This is the time when the crew are given the chance to make suggestions on how they think we can improve seabird bycatch measures. Instructors use this time to gauge the crew’s response and overall feeling about the mitigation measure they would be testing.
On most vessels, instructors are treated as part of the family onboard the vessels. Often crew go out of their way to help instructors feel at home and help with the research work that instructors do. Crew are actively encouraged to help where they can so they feel that they are contributing to the conservation effort and gain ownership of the mitigation measures. By doing so, we are able to work together to integrate mitigation with minimal impact on their daily fishing operations.
Our slogan in South Africa says ‘together we can’. So, in the same token we believe that by working together with the crew on fishing vessels will make a huge difference to the conservation status of seabirds.
Below: hauling nets on a South African trawl vessel