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Fishing Line and Hooks Were Tangled in This Albatross’s Stomach. After Surgery, the Bird Is Once Again Flying Free
The juvenile Salvin’s albatross was discovered by a fisherman in Anconcito, Ecuador
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Fisherman Juan Alberto Infante was in the port of Anconcito, Ecuador, when he noticed a large seabird behaving abnormally. The creature—a juvenile Salvin's albatross—hadn’t taken flight for several days and seemed unwell.
An X-ray later revealed why: The bird had a mess of fishing line and four large fishing hooks tangled in its stomach, including one that had injured its esophagus.
Now, after surgery and rehabilitation, the Salvin’s albatross is once again soaring through the sky, according to a statement from the American Bird Conservancy and New Zealand’s Department of Conservation.
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While this particular bird made a full recovery, other birds are not so lucky. Conservationists say the recent incident highlights the critical need to address bycatch, the unintended capture of marine life during fishing, which poses a major threat to seabirds and other animals.
After Infante spotted the struggling Salvin’s albatross in Anconcito, situated on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, he got in touch with local authorities. They rescued the bird, then took it to Puerto López, a coastal village located roughly 70 miles away.
There, local veterinarian Ruben Aleman surgically removed the ingested fishing line and hooks. Aleman works for Fundación Juvimar, a Puerto López-based nonprofit focused on the conservation of marine life. After the bird recovered from the procedure and regained some of its health, it was released on a nearby beach in late October.
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Based on the size and type, officials believe the fishing hooks came from an artisanal mahi-mahi fishery.
Key takeaway: Fishing Ecuador
Ecuador is home to some of the world's best fishing—and a lively artisanal fishing industry, which employs fishers with smaller boats, more rudimentary technology and fewer workers than large fishing operations. According to the United Nations Development Program, Ecuador's small-scale fleet includes over 15,000 fishing vessels and nearly 60,000 workers.“While reducing bycatch in this type of fishery is challenging, we continue to promote best practices and more sustainable tools to minimize incidental seabird capture,” says Giovanny Suárez Espín, seabird bycatch coordinator in Ecuador for the American Bird Conservancy, in the statement.
Like other albatrosses, Salvin’s albatrosses (Thalassarche salvini) spend most of their lives at sea, landing primarily to mate, lay eggs and rear their chicks. Because of their large, stiff wings, they can soar almost effortlessly on strong winds and thermals for days at a time. They use their hooked bills to grab prey like fish, squid, krill and salps off the water’s surface, according to New Zealand Birds Online.
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Salvin’s albatrosses can live to be more than 30 years old, returning annually to the same nesting site around August and September. The birds are monogamous, so if their partners have also managed to survive the year, they’ll rendezvous for another attempt at reproduction. Females typically lay one egg per year, and both partners help with incubation and chick care. Chicks fledge between February and April when they are between 115 to 130 days old.
The birds spend the breeding period in large, densely packed colonies on several uninhabited subantarctic islands hundreds of miles south of New Zealand, including the Bounty Islands and the western chain of the Snares Islands. A handful have also been spotted breeding on New Zealand’s Chatham Islands and on the Crozet Islands in the Indian Ocean.
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Once the breeding season is over, they fly north to the Pacific coast of South America, relying on the nutrient-rich Humboldt Current for food.
Though Salvin’s albatrosses are one of the least-studied seabirds, scientists estimate approximately 79,990 mature individuals are living in the wild. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers them “vulnerable,” while the government of New Zealand has deemed them “nationally critical,” a designation given to severely threatened species facing an immediate and high risk of extinction.
Bycatch is the primary threat to Salvin’s albatrosses, according to the New Zealand Department of Conservation. However, because the birds spend time in multiple places, protecting them requires collaboration. Researchers in Ecuador, Peru and New Zealand are studying the birds and working with the fishing industry to come up with potential solutions.
In Ecuador, for instance, experts with the American Bird Conservancy have partnered with more than 2,000 artisanal longline fishers to develop new, safer technologies that don’t endanger birds. One, called the NISURI device, helps sink baited fishing lines up to 90 percent faster than traditional techniques. To seabirds, baited lines floating atop the water are nearly irresistible, so the gadget helps reduce the risk they’ll accidentally become hooked.
“Each migration carries the silent risk of being hooked on longlines—a reminder that effective protection must transcend national boundaries,” says Carlos Zavalaga, a seabird ecologist at the Scientific University of the South in Lima, Peru, in the statement.
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