After more than 30 days of delays and set-backs, the FV Salomão VI finally left the port of Santos, where Kleber Baraldo has been working with the ATF team in Brazil, run by local NGO Projeto Albatroz.
The wooden-hulled vessel was about 45 feet (14 metres) long and typical of the Itaipava fleet, which is famous for their diverse fishing methods. It is hard to classify the fishery as some people consider it to be almost industrial in scale, while others say it is artisanal (small scale). Each vessel is able to capture up to around seven tonnes of fish, so we struggle to think of the fleet as totally artisanal.
We know that the Itaipava fishing fleet may be responsible for a considerable number of seabird captures, but we don't have enough direct evidence from at-sea monitoring. During the warmer summer months the fleet targets dolphin fish Coryphaena hippurus, for which they deploy hooks to fish at a depth less than 5 metres from the sea surface, while during the austral winter when seabirds are more abundant in Brazil time they target tuna, fishing deeper in the water column.
The image below shows Kleber Baraldo at-sea on a vesseel from the Itaipava fleet
The big questions we need to answer are what happens between seasons as birds start arriving in Brazil, when do they switch gear and what is the overlap with bird foraging zones.
As the vessels are small, opportunities are limited to perform monitoring trips. When Kleber was given the chance, he grabbed it with both hands and was soon heading out with the vessel to gather information about this fishing method and the birds found at this time of the year.
On this trip Spectacled petrels Procellaria conspicillata represented 95% of the seabirds observed, and a few yellow-nosed albatross. Kleber didn’t report any birds caught on this occasion, which is at least a first glimpse at the situation in this fleet.
From Kelber's trip we figured out that some things were indeed considerably different from what we know about the industrial fleet. These smaller boats don’t manage more than about six knots and don’t use “radio-buoys”. Radio buoys are normally deployed at the start and end of a longline, with a radio beacon that emits a signal to help locate the fishing gear on the high seas. The smaller vessels just use flags, and so need to follow the line until the recover it the next day.
The flag is very simple: a four-metre bamboo pole with a float tied to the middle and a rock tied to the lower end. An old t-shirt or anything else found to-hand is tied on the top as a flag and a flashlight is fixed in place with adhesive tape. During the night the crew take turns to monitor the small buoys bobbing at sea so as not to lose their gear.
The crew in this fleet are pleasant, modest and hardworking people and deserve a lot of respect for what they do on a daily basis. This trip was very important in terms of understanding the fishery and exchanging information with them.
Developing this relationship will be an important step in raising awareness of albatross conservation in this fleet.
The image below shows the forecastle deck of the Salomão VI as a swordfish is brought onboard