An SOS for Man’s Best Friend at Sea

With his cruel bow he laid full low

The harmless Albatross. --J Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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In Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the albatross was guardian of the sea and the seamen, and when this great bird was killed, the sailors were thereby doomed.

The Ancient Mariner killed only one albatross. Today they are dying by the tens of thousands, hooked and drowned on tuna, swordfish and groundfish fishing lines that are up to 80 miles long. These longlines carry thousands of baited hooks, and albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters go after the bait behind the boats before the hooks sink out of sight. About 180,000 of these oceanic birds of nearly 30 species are lost each year in longline fisheries operations worldwide.

The bird in the poem was probably a wandering albatross. Its wingspan of at least 10 feet is the greatest for any bird, and using wind energy it can glide over many thousands of miles of ocean in a month. These birds can live about as long as humans, and they mate for life. They begin reproducing when 10 years old and raise a single chick every other year. But when a breeding adult is lost at sea, its chick starves to death because the other parent cannot raise it alone, and two more years are lost while the widowed bird finds a new mate.

Most of us will never see an albatross. They are not found in zoos or aquariums. The 14 species of albatross and the 61 of shearwaters and petrels spend their lives at sea far from land, feeding and resting on the water and visiting oceanic islands only to breed. But if a huge and magnificent white bird with black trailing wing edges and a pink bill glides close by your ship almost touching the waves, you’ll remember that you saw a wandering albatross.

These great oceanic birds are a visible signal of the health of the oceans, and many are in decline. World population of the wandering albatross has declined 41%, from 98,000 to 58,000, in 30 years, and is now believed to be dwindling by nearly 10% per year. Other species are threatened and extinctions are likely unless the slaughter on longlines is curtailed. The even more endangered short-tailed albatross, with only 700 birds in the world, is also suffering mortality on longlines.

Commercial marine fisheries have encountered serious problems in recent years. Stocks of target fish species have been depleted by overfishing, while non-target species have been damaged. The drowning of sea turtles within shrimp nets and dolphins in tuna nets, as well as the killing of various marine mammals, birds and non-target fish within driftnets, have been widely publicized. International concern led to the U.N. moratorium on driftnetting in 1992. Less well known is the mortality of oceanic birds on longlines.

Fortunately, this slaughter is unintentional and preventable. Several measures could greatly reduce bird mortality, do no harm to fish harvesting and might actually increase fisheries’ profits. Perhaps the best solution is releasing the lines under water, making the baited hooks inaccessible to the birds. Streamers flapping in the wind above the hooks scare away most birds, setting hooks at night saves the albatrosses (but not the petrels) and sinking the hooks more rapidly also helps.

Implementing these solutions on countless ships of many nations in international waters is a daunting legal and diplomatic challenge. The Environmental Defense Fund and Defenders of Wildlife have been joined by a dozen other American and foreign environmental organizations in undertaking this task. But national and international agencies must act quickly if we are to save these birds and the health of the oceans on which they, and we, depend.