We’ve had very exciting and excellent weather in Walvis Bay this month with dominant south-westerly winds creating ideal conditions for a variety of water-sports and the flocking of birds into the lagoon.
Namibia has a closed season in the hake fishery every October with the primary aim of protecting the spawning fish. This means that we have a rest from at-sea activities and catch up on our other duties. This does not keep us quiet; we tend to put more of our efforts into administration work such as organising annual WWF and Albatross Task Force (ATF) workshops which aim to provide participants (observers, fishery inspectors, skippers and operation managers) with a broad understanding of responsible fishing and the eco-system approach to fisheries management.
Moreover, through our work in the ports, fisheries visits and workshops, ATF Namibia has approached every fishing company and has received positive feedback on the role that the ATF instructors are playing to reduce the mortality rate of seabirds. All the skippers and some of the observers that I have interviewed support the idea behind and the implementation of Bird Scaring Lines on every trawl and longline vessel in Namibia.
These actions have produced a very good relationship between ATF Namibia, the fishing industry and the Fishery Observer Agency that will help introduce seabird friendly measures into fishing operations over the coming years.