I am back to land after 22 days at sea and lots of fishing. This cruise gave me the opportunity to share important information with the crew of FV Yamaia III about keeping as many seabirds as possible safe.
The fishing ground was between 23° to 26°S latitude and 37° to 44°W longitude (in front of Cabo Frio city, in Rio de Janeiro State), at depths of 2,131 to 4,070 metres. The fishing lines were set a in calm sea, typical for that area.
Fortunately no seabirds were captured, mainly because in that area there were not many birds about, as the weather conditions are not favourable for seabirds in this season.
The sea temperature was very high and there was no wind, which made seabirds uncommon. Even then, eventually, I observed some seabirds such as Wilson's storm petrels, white-chinned petrels, spectacled petrels, Atlantic petrels, soft-plumaged petrels, great shearwaters, yellow-nosed albatross, masked boobies, skuas, Cory's shearwaters, parasitic skuas and pomarine skuas. In most of cases I just saw one or two individuals.
During the trip to the fishing ground, we swapped the old bird scaring lines (tori line streamers) with some new ones. All the crew members participated in this activity because they believe in the good effect tori lines have in avoiding seabird bycatch.
I also developed an environmental education approach to inform the fishermen about the importance of adopting mitigation measures throughout the cruise. We discussed mitigation measures during the whole trip and the fishermen and myself exchanged opinions on what works.
The FV Yamaia already use some mitigations measures when they think it is necessary - for example when there are many seabirds around the boat. The common measure they use is to dye the baits (squid) blue to make them less visible, and when necessary they also use the tori lines and night setting (this one is already used partially in all longline sets - the sets started at 4 or 5 pm).
At the end of the cruise, after sharing lots information on seabird conservation with fishermen aiming for a productive fishery, I think there is a lot of work to do.
In my point of view, this is a long-term task, and not just about improving awareness of the seabird's situation around the world, but also about environmental education on responsible fishery and the rational use of marine resources.
I believe that through this kind of approach we will seek environmental sustainability in all the biodiversity aspects and we cannot forget that the human being is part of it and also a fundamental part to improving this process.