International agreement to stop the killing of endangered Antipodean albatross
Tuesday, 14 December 2021
New Zealand and Spain have joined forces in a drive to protect one of our most critically endangered birds, the Antipodean albatross/toroa.
Likely extinct in 20-30 years, the seabird’s biggest threat is being caught and drowned in longline fisheries.
They breed in the remote subantarctic Antipodes and Campbell Island, but forage on the international high seas between New Zealand and Chile.
Spain operates a large distant-water fishing fleet, and the nutrient-rich currents off the Pacific coast of South America attract both international vessels and seabirds.
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In 2020 the Antipodean albatross was given the most serious threat classification in the Convention of Migratory Species, alongside blue whales and snow leopards.
On Wednesday morning, New Zealand’s Ambassador to Spain, Nigel Fyfe, on behalf of the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries signed a memorandum of understanding with Spain to reduce seabird bycatch.
The Government says the MOU will promote the adoption of bycatch mitigation measures, in particular those set out in the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, a 20-year-old international pact created to halt the decline of seabirds in the southern hemisphere.
The two nations will also share information and collaborate on research on seabird conservation.
And they have pledged to co-operate in implementing Antipodean Albatross Concerted Action, a United Nations convention adopted last year.
“Highly migratory species may spend much of their time foraging in the high seas. We can’t limit ourselves to protecting these taonga species only when they are breeding on our islands or coast and foraging in our waters,” Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan said.
Minister for Oceans and Fisheries David Parker said fishing in international waters posed a challenge to seabird species.
“Spain is a major fishing nation,” he said. “Together, New Zealand and Spain can play an important role in promoting best practice for seabird bycatch mitigation across the world. This advocacy will help to protect our migratory seabirds in Pacific fisheries and beyond.”
Three years ago, a similar partnership was established between New Zealand and Chile's Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture and Ministry of Environment.
With a 3-metre wingspan fully grown, the Antipodean albatross is among our largest seabirds.
They forage over the continental shelf edge and deep water from south of Western Australia to the coast of Chile, and can fly up to 100 kilometres in an hour.
But in recent years, sea-surface temperature changes caused by global warming are making their prey scarce and driving the albatross to forage further north, where they encounter fishing fleets on the high seas. Increasingly, they travel longer distances to find food.
The population has declined sharply over the past 16 years, with more than half the females on Antipodes Island vanishing at sea. This is reflected in a declining number of nests surveyed by DOC scientists Kath Walker and Graeme Elliott in the Antipodes.
There are an estimated 31,900 Antipodean albatrosses left, and only 9050 breeding pairs.
The deal comes as environmental groups call on consumers and supermarkets to take more notice of where the food we eat comes from.
Stuff revealed in October how US supermarkets were selling canned tuna, unaware the decline of the albatross was attributed to shockingly high levels of fisheries-related deaths in the Pacific Ocean, where longline vessels target albacore tuna.
Just a few days later, Stuff also reported the death of a young albatross, caught by a Taiwanese-flagged longline fishing vessel in June 2021.
A DOC satellite tag alerted scientist to the vulnerable creature’s fate, and the transmitter was retrieved from the fishing vessel.