A quirky look at wildlife. To be taken with a pinch of salt, but with more than a grain of truth!

There are many myths, legends and old wives' tales connected with birds and animals, but the most powerful one for me is the nautical superstition that it is unlucky to kill an albatross. Sailors worldwide have always considered the albatross to be a bringer of luck and that to kill one would bring bad luck down on any ship and crew, and death or a life-long curse on the sailor who killed it.

It seems today that many, many sailors are to die or be cursed if there is a shred of truth in the belief.

Of the 21 albatross species, 19 are threatened with extinction. Fishing vessels set hundreds of miles of lines with thousands of baited hooks, delivering them into the ocean at rate of two per second. Seabird bycatch happens when seabirds swallow baited hooks and drown, a major threat to many of the albatross species.

The legend is told very powerfully in 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God's name.



And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariners' hollo!

In the story, not all agreed. One mariner took matters in to his own hands, not realising the consequences. The looks in the eyes of his fellow mariners would haunt him for the rest of his days:

And I had done a hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow!



Why look'st thou so?'—'With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.'

Well, we may not be using crossbows anymore, but current methods are far more destructive. Albatross numbers are dropping daily by the thousand, victims of long-line fishing, ingestion of plastic waste (which I have mentioned before — see 'Stranger Than Fiction...' 13.07.06) and other factors.

Longline fishing kills 100,000 albatrosses each year — that's about one every five minutes. Again, 19 out of 21 species are threatened with extinction. Due to their low reproductive rate, they are dying faster than they can repopulate.

Huge efforts are being made to make long-line fishing safer and to protect albatrosses and many more pelagic birds, and mammals too. You can get a feeling for the issue on h2g2, where John Ridgway, veteran round-the-world yachtsman, helped set the ball rolling with a 'Save the Albatross' yacht trip round the world. Ridgeway said, 'Albatrosses are dying in their tens of thousands. Almost forever, these magnificent birds have flown up to 2,600 kilometres a day around the Southern Ocean, but soon they will be no more. Illegal longline fishing will kill them all. I could not stand to see this happen.'

In late July 2003, he, his wife and his yacht English Rose VI sailed from Ardmore in north-west Scotland, bound for the Southern Ocean, to raise awareness and funds. Support from Prince Charles, Eleanor McArthur (another round-the-world yottie) and many more prominent people followed. He and his wife Marie Christine finally arrived back home on Thursday, 1 July the following year, having raised unprecedented awareness concerning the plight of the albatross!

There has been quite substantial progress since. The RSPB set up an Albatross Task Force in partnership with BirdLife International to work face-to-face with fishermen at sea and on land. Fisheries managers and their governing bodies are being urged to take practical steps to protect endangered seabirds. The campaign to get more countries to sign the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels took off and many ratified it.

The Task Force is now working in South Africa, Brazil and Chile, with Argentina and Namibia and hopefully Uruguay soon. Setting up each Task Force member costs around €37,000 a year.

There are three simple ways of reducing the number of albatross deaths: adding weights to fishing lines so that they sink quickly, setting lines at night and using bird-scaring devices, such as streamers known as tori-lines which cost £75 each. Where these methods are used, there is a dramatic reduction in seabird deaths. Fishermen are often unaware of the simple, cost-effective ways to reduce albatross deaths.

There are observers on some boats to record sealife deaths, but there is a shortage of experts, which the Task Force hopes to address. This involves going to sea in all weathers in the most dangerous oceans in the world, using language and communication skills to get the crews on-side and cooperative and listening to their concerns. The Task Force also targets known problem fisheries where many deaths occur.

Quite recently, the plight of the world's seabirds has been recognised by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation Committee on Fisheries. At a week-long meeting, BirdLife International,­ with backing from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Chile and Brazil,­ obtained the Committee's support for the development of best-practice guidelines for National Plans of Action to help reduce seabird bycatch.

Dr Sullivan, who was at the meeting, said, 'Seabirds, particularly albatross, are facing immense threats, more so than any other group of birds in the world. It's a genuinely good result that the world's fishing nations have recognised the importance of developing best practices to assist them in reducing the impact of their fisheries on seabirds.'

During the 2005-06 Volvo Ocean Race, event organisers adopted the Save the Albatross campaign after becoming aware that around 100,000 albatross die each year after being caught on long-line fishing hooks. The international group of sailors signed a large postcard that Forest and Bird delivered to the diplomatic missions of Chinese Taipei, Japan, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Spain, Chile and Argentina. These countries have important longline fishing fleets or are albatross range states and have been encouraged to adopt seabird bycatch mitigation measures in their fisheries operations.

In 2008-09, the race will increase efforts to protect these magnificent seabirds, and the new route including Asia will create new opportunities for raising awareness and support for the campaign in areas where the largest fishing fleets originate. So perhaps there is hope that the albatross will still be around to bring luck to future generations of mariners, and perhaps they will not need to quote:

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

If people care enough and protest enough and do enough, then there is a chance for these beautiful, awe-inspiring birds and many of their contemporaries, whether bird or mammal.

It would be a dreadful thing if Coleridge's poem became a memorial to an extinct species!

Websailor's Wacky Wildlife World Archive

Websailor

19.04.07 Front Page

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