Fishermen's Perceptions of Interactions Between Seabirds And
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Fishermen’s perceptions of interactions between seabirds and artisanal fisheries in the Chonos archipelago, Chilean Patagonia C RISTIÁN G. SUAZO,ROBERTO P. SCHLATTER,ALDO M. ARRIAGADA L UIS A. CABEZAS and J AIME O JEDA Abstract Interactions between seabirds and commercial Introduction fishing activities have been well documented but little information is available regarding the impacts of more eabird bycatch has been widely documented in com- fi traditional fishing practices on seabird populations. We Smercial sheries but the extent to which traditional fi ff interviewed fishermen, administered questionnaires, and shing activities a ect seabirds has not been well studied 2011 made field-based observations to determine the extent to (Anderson et al., ). In central Chile diving birds (e.g. which artisanal fisheries interact with and affect seabirds in penguins, cormorants, shearwaters) sometimes drown in fi the fjords and channels of the Chonos archipelago in artisanal gill-net or purse-seine sheries (Simeone et al., 1999 2002 2009 southern Chile. Our surveys indicated a positive perception ; Brito, ; Schlatter et al., ), and in southern of seabirds as useful indicators of marine productivity and Chile seabirds may be caught by the artisanal Patagonian fi in their role scavenging fish waste and discards associated tooth sh Dissostichus eleginoides and Austral hake fi 0 047 0 030 with fishing operations. However, the surveys also revealed Merluccius australis sheries ( . and . birds per 1 000 2006 that fishermen routinely establish seasonal camps for , hooks, respectively, Moreno et al., ). However, the collecting seabird eggs and adults for food or bait and earliest records on bycatch rates, without mitigation fl introduce feral predators to seabird breeding colonies on measures, from the traditional long-line eet for these , 18 islands. Understanding the traditional practices of fisher- waters (vessel size m) were generally low (white- 0 068 men is critical for the future of community-based chinned petrel Procellaria aequinoctialis: . birds per 1 000 conservation of the region’s marine resources and biodi- , hooks, exclusively during winter) compared to the fl 0 374–1 285 1 000 versity. industrial eet ( . birds per , hooks, mainly during the breeding period of subantarctic birds, in Keywords Artisanal fishery, bycatch, Chile, conservation, summer; Moreno et al., 2003). feral predators, Patagonia, seabirds, South-east Pacific, In addition to incidental capture, egg collection, hunting, subantarctic and direct harvesting for food have been associated with fi ff This paper contains supplementary material that can be traditional shing activities and may also a ect seabird 1999 found online at http://journals.cambridge.org/orx populations (Schlatter & Simeone, ). Unregulated tourism (Simeone & Schlatter, 1998; Guicking et al., 1999) and for-profit trade may also be problematic (Ibarra-Vidal & Klesse, 1994), perturbing habitats and introducing invasive species or disease. There is a significant artisanal fishing fleet targeting austral hake and ling Genypterus blacodes in the fjords and channels of the Chonos archipelago (between 44° and 46°S; CRISTIÁN G. SUAZO* (Corresponding author) Department of Animal Ecology Fig. 1), where artisanal activities are an important part of and Systematics, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 38, 35392 Giessen, Germany. E-mail [email protected] fishing (. 1 million hooks set since 2002; Moreno et al., 2006 ROBERTO P. SCHLATTER Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Facultad ). Hake are caught on individual vertical lines de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile suspended from a drifting buoy called atorrante (i.e. ALDO M. ARRIAGADA Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales wandering). This gear is up to 200 m long, is equipped y Oceanográficas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile with 30–35 hooks, and has a 0.3–1.0 kg weight attached to the LUIS A. CABEZAS Albatross Task Force, BirdLife International, Chile bottom of each atorrante (Moreno et al., 2006; Plate 1). Ling JAIME OJEDA† Parque Etnobotánico Omora (Instituto de Ecología y are caught using a line positioned horizontally on the Biodiversidad – Universidad de Magallanes), Puerto Williams, Chile seabed. Boats are 6–9 m long and have outboard motors; *Also at: Albatross Task Force, BirdLife International, Chile one boat can set a maximum of 2,000 hooks per day †Also at: Departamento de Ciencias y Recursos Naturales, Facultad de Ciencias, 2006 Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile (Moreno et al., ). In this archipelago seabird species breed and forage in areas that overlap with the ling and hake Received 16 July 2011. Revision requested 29 November 2011. Accepted 6 December 2011. fisheries. These long-line fisheries are a potential threat in © 2013 Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 47(2), 184–189 doi:10.1017/S0030605311001815 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 01 Oct 2021 at 19:05:15, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605311001815 Fishermen’s perceptions 185 75°W 74°W 44°S 45°S 46°S FIG. 1 The Chonos archipelago, Chilean Patagonia, showing the location of the Huichas islands, the areas preferred by Fishing lines fishermen for artisanal fishing (for Gill nets fishing lines and gill nets) and the 47°S Seabird colonies location of seabird breeding colonies in this area. perceptions of artisanal fishermen regarding their inter- actions with seabirds both at sea and on land, (2) determine the direct and indirect threats to seabirds resulting from artisanal fisheries in the region, (3) establish baseline information against which future conservation concerns can be assessed, and (4) explore the potential to promote and include artisanal fisheries in community-based con- servation initiatives. Methods We used questionnaires to interview 60 hake and ling fishermen (18–65 years old) from the Chonos archipelago in Chile. To ensure that we could have confidence in the PLATE 1 Artisanal drift line known as atorrante. Left, settled line answers, trained university students related to the fisher- in shallow waters to show line’s detail and its bottom weight. men, and associated with the fishing activities of their Upper right, buoy and flags. Bottom right, line and hooks. relatives during the austral summer (January–March), administered all questionnaires. The questionnaires con- tained 13 open and closed questions (Supplementary what is considered to be a globally important breeding area Information 1). for albatross species (Moreno & Robertson, 2008). Isolated We also interviewed 30 artisanal fishermen working in fishing areas and extreme weather in this part of Patagonia the region, using the same questionnaire, and made encourage the creation of seasonal camps, where additional additional direct at-sea observations of fishing operations interactions between fishermen and seabirds could have to acquire more detailed information. These observations detrimental effects on seabirds. were made of line and net fishing; (n 5 24 boats with The goals of this study were to use questionnaires, 60 setting lines and 10 nets, monitoring by CGS) during interviews, and field-based research to: (1) understand the July–February (the austral winter and summer fishing © 2013 Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 47(2), 184–189 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 01 Oct 2021 at 19:05:15, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605311001815 186 C. G. Suazo et al. TABLE 1 Seabirds recognized by artisanal fishermen in the Chonos archipelago (Fig. 1), with prey recorded by fishermen, threats previously documented in Chile (Schlatter & Simeone, 1999), threats documented in this study, and the IUCN (2012) Red List category of the species. % Bird’s main food recognized item recognized by by fishermen Previous threats in Chile IUCN Species fishermen (type of prey) (area mentioned) Main threats (this study)1 category2 Magellanic penguin 100 Little fish (sprat) Egg collection & hunting Gill nets, fishing lines, egg NT Spheniscus for bait (central & collection, hunting for food magellanicus southern Chile) & bait, introduction of feral predators, oil spills Southern giant petrel 82.5 Bait from fishing No information Fishing lines LC Macronectes lines & offal (subantarctic islands) giganteus Southern fulmar 80 Little fish (sprat) No information Fishing lines, hunting for bait LC Fulmarus glacialoides Black-browed 67.5 Bait from fishing Future shrimp fishery Fishing lines, plastic debris EN albatross lines & offal (distant south) Thalassarche melanophrys Sooty shearwater 55 Little fish (sprat) No information (distant Fishing lines, gill nets NT Puffinus griseus southern islands) Wilson’s storm petrel 10 No information No information (distant Plastic debris, oil spills LC Oceanites oceanicus southern islands) Diving petrel 2.5 No information No information Plastic debris, oil spills LC Pelecanoides spp.3 (inner sea & distant southern islands) Kelp gull Larus 100 Mainly offal Egg collection (along Egg collection, hunting for LC dominicanus Chilean coast) bait, introduction of feral predators, plastic debris 1 These threats don’t consider the invasion and predation on the islands by American mink, which was introduced into Patagonia for the pelt industry in the 1960s 2 NT, Near Threatened; VU, Vulnerable; LC, Least Concern;