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To listen to soundfile: click on the headphones icon
To download soundfile: click on the mp3 file name
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Above: Pair of Laysans Albatross. This species has been poorly treated by humans for more than a century before long-lining began to take its toll from the 1970s onwards. In the late 1800s egg collectors raided their colonies for decades to aid the newly discovered photographic industry. Feather collectors in the early 1900s would round-up thousands of these birds every year to have them starved before plucking their feathers for the mattresses industry. When the US military established an airforce base on Midway 80,00 birds were clubbed to death to make way for the runway system put in place during WWII. Today these birds are as trusting and serene as always.
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Nicholas Carlile from the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change who usually reports on Island Sanctuaries sings a different tune, this time on a range of human interventions that have impacted adversely on seabird populations. This is an issue close to his heart, having written a song for a CD release (Songs in the Key of Geen) by Ecopella, a choir that has been singing about environmental issues for ten years.
The song, Wings of a Seabird, highlights a number of issues people don't usually connect with seabirds, probably because our contact with these birds is limited to coastal areas, a very different context to their normal habitats.
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One of these issues is the historical aspect of seabird exploitation.
Seabirds were often used as a food source by mariners and all manner of birds, such as albatross, were treated as fair game. Breeding seasons were especially popular since the birds would gather in very large numbers, making them easy prey. In another damaging move, mariners would often release goats or pigs or rabbits onto islands destroying seabird habitat as well.
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Another blow to seabirds was dealt by the rise in popularity of photography.
The albumen in seabird eggs was used in part of the photographic plate and the more popular photography became the more albumen was needed. In places like Midway Island, for example, tens of thousands of albatross eggs were collected every season, impacting heavily on the albatross population.
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The beginning of feather collecting, however, brought the heaviest tolls.
Feathers were collected for pillows, for doonas and for fashion. Many seabird populations were hunted to the brink of extinction. The short-tailed albatross, from the island of Torashima is the most noted case. Breeding on an almost inaccessible island with an active volcano, the numbers of short-tailed albatross plummeted from seven million to several thousand and finally to a count of 40 before any human intervention. It is only now that the species has recovered to about 1500 breeding pairs.
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There are still many threats to seabirds, the biggest is the more recent practice of longlining by the fishing industry. Longines can be up to five kilometres long and carry some 30,000 hooks loaded with bait. They are set and reset for weeks on end. When set they come from the back of an ocean trawler and may float for a while before sinking. Coupled with the fact that many trawlers process their fish catch on board and offloading the fish offal in the process, the trawlers are powerful seabird magnets, killing numerous birds in the hooks and lines. Indeed some populations of seabirds are known to have dropped by as much as 95%.
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The Australian government passed legislation to help mitigate the effects of longlining on the seabirds in our own waters, such as the Tasmanian Shy Albatross which faced extinction. |
| These mitigation measures included setting lines at night when the albatross did not feed and not offloading fish offal when setting lines or having poles with long streamers fluttering above the water at the back of the trawler where the lines are being set.
The measures do help the species in question (although they are not necessarily implemented when trawlers are out of sight at sea), but there are many other species who have yet to be considered. Petrels for example feed at night and shearwaters not only feed at night, but can dive many metres ow the surface of the ocean.
Left: It's a long way to the bottom ... a Wandering Albatross, drowned after becoming hooked on a long line.
Photo is by Graham Robertson from the Australian Antarctic Division who is renowned as probably having done more to protect albatross from long-line hooks than anybody else in the world.
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Nicholas Carlile says that many seabirds species are sitting ducks. He suggests that we stick to eating only sustainable fish production, where seabirds are not harmed. He believes that since we have already shown that we the consumers were able to make changes to the tuna industry because of concerns abour dolphins, then if we have the will, we could also put pressure on the fishing industry to come up with the goods and help secure the future for our seabirds.
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Wings of a Seabird To watch film clip of WINGS OF A SEABIRD click here | I'm flying
On the wings of a seabird
Spread out over new worlds
Over the oceans twix land and land But people
Please heed the warning
Our numbers are falling
Threats of extinction are in your hands
Hearts and hands
Hey you
That fish you are eating
Caught on the high seas
Long lining where we feed we dive on your baits
Hooks cut
Deep in our soft bills
Lead weights drag us down 'til
Hauled dead onto your boats then tossed aside
Tossed aside
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For centuries
Our islands you plunder
Food for your sailors
For settlers and sealers and feathers for trade
Dumb struck
We know not to fear you
On islands we're near you
For nesting to breed we fall easy prey
Easy prey
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Abandoned
You leave us with island wrecks
With cat rat and goat beset
Havoc in what was our paradise
In some isles
Once we were millions
Reduced to just handfuls
And sometimes just gone
Just gone
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I'm flying
On the wings of a seabird
Spread out over new worlds
Over the oceans twix land and land
But people
Please heed the warning
Our numbers are falling
Threats of extinction are in your hands
Hearts and hands
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Above: A thriving colony of Red-footed Boobies, kept 'safe' in a live artillery range on Oahu, Hawaii. The military not only bar public access or that of any large mammals (feral) but also control mongoose at the colony to ensure these birds continue to breed on an urbanised island in Hawaii.
Words for Wings of a Seabird reproduced with permission.
Photos from Nicholas Carlile Text: V.B. April 2008
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