GetBirding.com

Cape Town, 29 April 2010: A remarkable partnership has formed to help save albatrosses and other seabirds from extinction. BirdLife South Africa and WWF-SA have pulled together Japanese longline fishermen, plastics and rope manufacturers and a community of challenged people in the coastal village of Ocean View.

Saving seabirds from extinction is simpler than it might seem. In the 1980s a Japanese fisherman invented the ‘tori line’, a kind of marine scarecrow. It consists of a 100 m rope flown behind the boat over the baited hooks that are the fatal attraction to birds. Brightly coloured streamers dangle from the rope and scare the birds away. BirdLife South Africa’s Meidad Goren said “These tori lines have reduced seabird
bycatch by up to 80% in some fisheries”.

The tori line project began in 2006, through a collaborative effort between BirdLife South Africa’s Albatross Task Force, the Kommetjie Environmental Awareness Group (KEAG) and WWF-SA’s Sustainable Fisheries Programme, when a small team of disabled men and women living and working in the coastal town of Ocean View offered to make the tori lines. Since then hundreds of tori lines have been sold to fishermen, potentially saving the lives of thousands of birds. “This project makes us very proud; we feel that we are part of a very important effort and that despite of our limitations we can still contribute to the conservation of our environment”, said Deborah Gonsalves,
manager of the Ocean View Centre for persons with disabilities.

Researchers from Washington Sea Grant at the University of Washington are conducting research to improve measures and techniques to protect seabirds in collaboration with the South African longline fishing rights holders, their Japanese joint venture partners, MCM, the Albatross Task Force, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and others. The results of research conducted so far have led, inter alia, to an improved tori line design. The new lines have been accepted as the standard by the longline industry and fisheries management. Don Lucas, President of Tuna South Africa and Chairman of the South African Tuna Longline Association expressed great satisfaction with the work. ” We are very proud and excited to be involved in these humanitarian and conservation projects supporting the local community and protecting our natural resources.”
“The success of this work is thanks not only to our skippers and to increased compliance with fishing regulations, but also to the expertise of the disabled team at Ocean View, and host of other contributors which includes Southern Ropes Ltd (PTY), Plastic Federation of South Africa and the Japanese fishing industry. It’s an amazing collaboration of unlikely organisations which have made the tori line project happen” said Dr Samantha Petersen of WWF-SA’s Responsible Fishing Programme.