It is widely appreciated that New Zealand is the seabird capital of the world. We mitigate seabirds interactions by ensuring our fishers have all undertaken Seabird SMART training. To take this a step further, we’ve also sent a number of our fishers over to Great Barrier Island to work with Senior Ecologist, Biz Bell in a tagging program of our most endangered seabird, the Black Petrel.
In collaboration with Southern Seabird Trust and others, we’ve been part of a program where we used proxy seabirds made of woven FLAX. The trial included attaching these FLAX seabirds to a fishing line and seeing if cameras can automatically detect them.
It was a great success and now we have made the investment to install these cameras on long-line vessels in and around the Hauraki Gulf. This helps reinforce the importance of taking all precautions possible to ensure they don’t end up on a fishing line.
All of this, our fishers do voluntarily