The BirdLife team are collating seabird tracking data for the Humboldt Current region and adjacent High Seas to assess fisheries bycatch risk as part of an ambitious collaborative project with Global Fishing Watch, funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF).

 

Study site in yellow – Humboldt Current and adjacent High Seas.

 

Fisheries are essential for the livelihoods and food security of millions worldwide. However, bycatch—the incidental capture of non-target species—remains a major threat to marine biodiversity, particularly seabird populations. For over two decades, BirdLife International’s Marine Programme has been at the forefront of efforts to mitigate seabird bycatch in priority fisheries. Through collaboration with industry stakeholders and advocacy for regulatory measures, we have worked to develop and promote effective solutions.

 

Despite important successes, many seabird populations continue to decline, highlighting the persistence of high bycatch rates, particularly in the Humboldt Current region. Here, diverse fisheries—including trawl, purse seine, gillnet, and longline operations—are implicated in bycatch issues.

 

White-chinned Petrels (Procellaria aequinoctialis), a Globally Threatened species (VU) by the IUCN Red List, is one of the many species affected by bycatch in the Humboldt Current region.

 

To maximise the impact of conservation efforts, we need to identify the fleets that pose the greatest risk to seabirds. Conservation prioritisation in this region has previously relied on coarse-scale information, such as national initiatives, single-species tracking studies, and the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) prioritisation framework, which was based primarily on expert consultation rather than comprehensive empirical data.

 

With the increasing availability of seabird tracking and fishing activity data, we can reassess the areas where seabirds face the highest bycatch risk in the Humboldt Current and adjacent High Seas. This re-evaluation will support grassroots engagement and provide robust, data-driven insights to inform decision-makers seeking to enhance the sustainability of fishing operations.

 

As part of this initiative, we held a workshop in Lima, Peru, ahead of the ACAP Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBWG). This workshop brought together seabird and fisheries researchers to assess data availability on seabird distribution and fishing activities. The event fostered exciting collaborations, with data owners contributing valuable new seabird tracking data to enhance the planned analyses.

 

Ana Carneiro (BirdLife), Esteban Frere (BirdLife) and Andrea Sánchez-Tapia (Global Fishing Watch) from the organizing team (picture in the left) and attendants to the workshop (picture in the right).

 

If you have additional tracking data that are not yet uploaded to the Seabird Tracking Database, we encourage you to contribute to ensure a comprehensive assessment. For questions about data uploads, please email seabirds@birdlife.org. If you are unable to upload your data to the database but would still like to contribute to this project, please contact ana.carneiro@birdlife.org.

 

We plan to publish the results of this analysis in a scientific manuscript, and all data contributors will be invited as co-authors. Your contributions are invaluable in advancing seabird conservation efforts.