Abstract

Beachcast events, where a large number of seabird carcasses drift ashore, occur with irregular intervals. These events are due to specific situations where mass mortality of seabirds have occurred. Disentangling the cause of these events can provide valuable information on stressors impacting seabird populations. Following several mass mortality events involving gulls in northern Norway, an investigation of the probable cause of death was initiated. In total 75 dead gulls were collected at two occasions and necropsies were carried out. The findings from the necropsy of the gulls were consistent with drowning as the primary cause of death. Bycatch in coastal purse seine fishery was considered a potential cause of the mortality and monitoring of seabird bycatch in this fishery was thus initiated. The monitoring of fishing operations revealed that 10% of 91 fishing events observed led to bycatch, with a total of 32 bycaught seabirds. These bycatch events resulted in a total estimated bycatch rate of 0.356 (95% CI = 0.133-0.949) birds per haul. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the registered mortality events were caused by bycatch in the purse seine fishery. The highly episodic and unpredictable nature of these events makes it demanding to achieve solid estimates of the occurrence and extent of bycatch without a very high monitoring effort. Our study shows that systematic investigation following beachcast events can shed light on the occurrence of such extreme events.

Keywords

Coastal waters; Fisheries interaction; Gulls; Laridae; Mortality; Necropsies; Observer programme; Stranding's

Published in

Marine Environmental Research
2022, Volume: 177, article number: 105625
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Ytrehus, Björnar

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Norwegian Institute Nature Research

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences
Fish and Aquacultural Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2022.105625

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/117546