Albatrosses killed in fishery mishap

The fishing industry is not doing enough to stop killing endangered seabirds, Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage says.

Responding to a report that a longline fishing boat killed five critically threatened Antipodean albatross in the Bay of Plenty region in December and January, Sage said the industry needed to show leadership over the issue.

About 3700 breeding pairs of the albatross live on the Antipodean Islands south-east of New Zealand, but the giant seabird is under threat. ‘‘The population is crashing, there has been a 12 per cent decline a year in females but we don’t know the exact level of deaths,’’ Forest & Bird’s seabird advocate Karen Baird said.

Sage said the deaths occurred even though the fisher was operating within the existing fisheries regulations for reducing bycatch.

She said the industry could use innovations such as hookshielding devices to cover the point and barb of the hook when longlines were set so seabirds cannot be hooked and drowned. ‘‘Existing measures to reduce the risk to seabirds include weighting lines so they sink faster, setting them at night, and using bird scaring lines. Using all three together is international best practice but is obviously not enough,’’ Sage said. The same fishing boat also caught a nationally critical Gibson’s albatross, two nationally vulnerable black petrels, and one Buller’s albatross were also killed. The deaths were recorded by a Fisheries New Zealand observer. Nationally critical is the most serious category for threatened species.

The news follows a report last week that four Hector’s dolphin were caught last year in a trawl net off the South Island east coast. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said he was concerned at the reports of seabird deaths. ‘‘I appreciate that the fishing vessel was operating within the rules. I acknowledge too that the skipper took further steps to mitigate risks of further captures by relocating to another area. However in this case it’s clear that was not enough to prevent these seabird casualties.’’

Baird said the albatross deaths were reported by an official observer, but only a minority of fishing boats had observers on board.