Impacts of fisheries on seabird communities

By Robert W. Furness. 2003

251 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Long-line by-catch of albatrosses and petrels may soon lead to species extinctions. Set-net bycatch has caused major reductions in certain seabird populations. Some fisheries may decrease numbers of seabirds by reducing abundance of prey-fish. Other fisheries may increase seabird numbers, by increasing prey-fish abundance through depletion of predatory fish stocks, or by provision of offal and discards. These latter impacts of fisheries on seabirds are often difficult to measure against a background of many and varied environmental and human influences. Depletion of stocks of small lipid-rich fish have reduced numbers of seabirds, in Peru, the Norwegian Sea, and the Barents Sea. However, reductions of predatory fish stocks in the North Sea have more than compensated for quantities of sandeels removed by the sandeel fishery. While piscivorous fish stocks remain low, sandeel fishery and seabirds appear to be able to coexist. However, if piscivorous fish stocks recover in the North Sea, reduced availability of sandeels to seabirds may affect certain species. Provision of discards and offal can stimulate large increases in scavenging seabird numbers. Desirable reductions in discard rates may have an unfortunate side-effect of forcing some scavenging seabirds to turn to killing smaller seabirds, with drastic consequences for community structure.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cb74ed3f1f25c1ca45248f4b97b54db4b99de2e0

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecological Modeling

1. H. Österblom
2. Olof Olsson
3. Joan Navarro
4. Thorsten Blenckner
5. Daniel Oro
6. J. Rice
7. S. Garcia
8. L. Bugoni

In Ecology

1. S. Bearhop
2. Jaime Ramos
3. S. Votier
4. Richard Inger
5. R. McGill
6. Robert W. Furness
7. J. Newton
8. R. Phillips

Citations in the corpus

• Estimating predation on breeding European storm‐petrels (Hydrobates pelagicus) by yellow‐legged gulls (Larus michahellis) (2005, background): “…environment that may affect predation are: (1) alterations in food availability to gulls or other large predatory seabirds, such as a reduction in discard availability (Oro & Martı́nez-Vilalta, 1994; Oro & Furness, 2002; Furness, 2003); (2) changes in light conditions, in nocturnal prey species.”
• The importance of pelagic longline fishery discards for a seabird community determined through stable isotope analysis (2010, background): “Fishing activities could have a beneficial effect on seabirds, by bringing them otherwise unavailable food in the form of offal or discarded demersal fish, and by removing competitors (Montevecchi, 2002; Furness, 2003).”
• Fisheries, food security, climate change, and biodiversity: characteristics of the sector and perspectives on emerging issues (2011, background): “If substantial amounts of protein were removed from lower trophic levels, the foraging success of a wide range of dependent predators would be affected (Furness, 2003; Daunt et al., 2008).”
• Individual responses of seabirds to commercial fisheries revealed using GPS tracking, stable isotopes and vessel monitoring systems (2010, background): “By providing huge quantities of food in the form of bait, undersized catch and offal, the demographics of largemarine predator populations has also been profoundly altered (Furness 2003; Lewison et al. 2004).”
• Fish, seabirds and trophic cascades in the Baltic Sea (2006, background): “…not permitted without written consent of the publisher Mar Ecol Prog Ser 323: 233–238, 2006 2001, Davoren & Montevecchi 2003, Gjerdrum et al. 2003), buffering mechanisms (e.g. diet switching) and variation in predation pressure, generally complicate the interpretation of data (Furness 2003).”
• Identifying sandeel Ammodytes marinus sediment habitat preferences in the marine environment (2005, background): “Consequently, most concern has focused on the potential impact of sandeel fishing on seabirds (Monaghan 1992, Furness & Tasker 2000, Furness 2002, 2003).”
• Junk-food in marine ecosystems (2008, methodology): “The resilience of seabird populations to changes in prey abundance and availability has focused the attention on adaptive capacity of species related to foraging strategies (Furness 2003), but the ‘junk-food’ observations reviewed in this study indicate that the flexibility of seabird digestive syst”
• Potential consequences of discard reform for seabird communities (2013, unknown): “2003), representing a threat to some seabird communities (Furness 2003; Votier et al. 2004b,c, 2006, 2007, 2008a).”
• Tracking seabirds to identify potential Marine Protected Areas in the tropical western Indian Ocean (2012, background): “Although these interactions can have large impacts on many seabird populations throughout the world (see Furness, 2003 for a review), our observations in the western Indian Ocean indicate that they do not have major impacts on seabirds in this region.”
• Age and sexual differences in the exploitation of two anthropogenic food resources for an opportunistic seabird (2010, background): “This is especially apparent in opportunist predators situated at the top of trophic networks, such as most seabird species (e.g. Cairns 1992; Furness 2003; Votier et al. 2008).”
• Foraging behaviour and energetics of Cape gannets Morus capensis feeding on live prey and fishery discards in the Benguela upwelling system (2007, background): “Although some fisheries increase food availability for seabirds through waste, other fisheries compete directly with seabirds when harvesting their main natural prey (Furness 2003).”
• Industrial fishing, no-take zones and endangered penguins (2012, unknown): “, 2005) and fishing can modify prey availability for predators by reducing prey density or increasing prey recruitment variability (Furness, 2003).”
• Ecosystem Services Provided by Birds (2008, background): “Seabird use of discards and incidental captures at the Argentine hake trawl fishery in the Golfo San Jorge, Argentina.”