NZ Govt’s proposal to overturn ban on trawl gear will ‘kill more albatrosses’, critics say

Sunday, 23 January 2022

Commercial fishing, introduced predators and climate change are putting penguins and other unique seabirds on the edge of survival. (File video)

The Government is proposing to overturn a ban on a controversial underwater cable used by fishing trawlers, and linked to the injury and death of seabirds.

For 30 years, the use of net-sonde, also known as a third wire, has been prohibited in New Zealand waters.

They were linked to a high number of deaths, particularly of albatross, caused by birds colliding with the cable.

It connects a sonar, camera or telemetry device to trawlers during fishing operations and gives crew a live feed to monitor the catch and performance of nets.

The practice is also banned in the Southern Ocean, and Australia’s subantarctic region.

Fisheries New Zealand have opened consultation a proposal to allow their use. The agency also wants to rebrand net-sonde, calling them “data transmission cables”.

A coalition of environmental non-governmental organisations, including Greenpeace, WWF-New Zealand, Forest and Bird, Birdlife International and Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ, have written to Fisheries Minister David Parker and Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan urging them to retain the ban.

Its removal would “set an alarming precedent for use of these dangerous cables in trawl fisheries globally”, they wrote.

“This would be a seriously retrograde step, which goes against internationally established best practice fisheries management.”

More than 90 per cent of New Zealand’s seabirds are in trouble, at risk from climate change and the commercial fishing industry.

ECO’s Barry Weeber said it was “a proposal to kill more albatrosses in New Zealand fisheries”.

Before the ban, an estimated “1800 albatrosses were killed annually in subantarctic fisheries”, he said.

White-capped mollymawk are classified as ‘near threatened’.

At risk are the white-capped mollymawk, classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as vulnerable to endangerment. An estimated 2300 were killed in 1990, mostly from collision with the cables.

In 2019, Chilean researchers found the presence of the cables increases the probability of seabird mortality more than threefold.

Weeber argued the proposal did not align with the Government’s goal of reducing bycatch, pledged in both the National Plan of Action for Seabirds in 2020 and the Te Mana o Te Taiao biodiversity strategy.

A seabird snared and killed in net-sonde cables in Argentina.

WWF-NZ’s Bubba Cook wants cameras positioned on the deepwater fleet to monitor their impact on seabirds. Currently, a government plan to roll out 300 applies only to inshore vessels.

Ellie Hooper, Greenpeace NZ oceans campaigner, said one in three seabirds in New Zealand were threatened with extinction.

Large numbers of seabirds, especially albatrosses and petrels, are attracted to trawlers to feed on fish which falls from the net.

“The absolute last thing we should be doing is reintroducing things we know will kill more precious albatross and petrels,” she said. “It’s just doing the same thing but hoping for a different result.

“We've got to stop burying our heads in the sand. If we know fishing techniques or equipment are trashing native and precious biodiversity, then we need to stop using them.”

The fishing industry has lobbied for the ban to be removed for some time.

A white-capped mollymawk snatches a blue cod from Tasman Bay.

“The potential benefits from enhanced trawl sonar equipment, such as improved efficiency and selectivity of the trawl gear, could reduce the costs and environmental impacts of fishing … fishers will only invest in this technology if there is certainty around being able to use it,” Fisheries NZ said.

Collin Williams, Sanford’s general manager of fishing, said when the technology was in use prior to the 1992 ban, seabird mitigation was not.

Now, vessels regularly use streamers and bafflers to scare birds away from the trawl net wires, and could cover the cable, he said.

Williams said today’s more advanced technology was the equivalent of upgrading from a copper wire telephone to fibre optic Wi-Fi.

“It brings in the potential to fish more accurately, stay on track more accurately and only fish where the fish are, because you can literally see them.

“It won’t happen in the next five minutes, but taking the tech further you could theoretically see a marine mammal go into your net, and have a mechanism that allows you to send a message down your fibre optic to open the trawl and let everything out.”

A spokesman for Parker said no decisions had been made on these proposals, and the Government was keen to hear from all interested parties.