Workshops To Save Seabirds

Workshops To Save Seabirds

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 For the week of 2–6 November 2017 the office of BirdLife South Africa’s Seabird Conservation Programme was busier than an albatross breeding colony at feeding time. Under the Common Oceans’ Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction Tuna Project, Bronwyn Maree and Nini van der Merwe hosted the Namibian Observer Training workshop, with help from Ross Wanless, Andrea Angel, Reason Nyengera and the Namibian Albatross Task Force (ATF) team. In addition to four Namibian fisheries observers, James Nagan, the newly appointed Port-Based Outreach (PBO) officer for Fiji, attended the workshop. With the main aim of training fisheries observers to prevent seabird bycatch on longline tuna vessels, the workshop also sought to improve the observers’ seabird identification skills and their understanding of the reporting requirements set out by the Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organisations. A full day of ‘in the field’ identification training kicked off the proceedings. Three days of lectures followed the pelagic trip and then there was a harbour visit to view a local tuna longline vessel. The workshop created an invaluable opportunity to develop our working relationship with our neighbour to the north. It also enabled us to share our experience of data collection and point out to the Namibian observers how best to gather seabird bycatch information f