MORTALITY TO MARINE BIRDS THROUGH COMMERCIAL FISHING 



199 



Long-term Effects of 



Developing Capelin Fishery in 



Northwest Atlantic 



Capelin are important food fish for many 

 seabirds in the northwest Atlantic, and the 

 development and expansion of this fishery off 

 eastern Canada must be carefully monitored. 

 In theory, the capelin fishery ought not to 

 seriously affect the birds because it is de- 

 signed to exploit a surplus of capelin artifi- 

 cially created by the overfishing of Atlantic 

 cod, the capelin's most important predator. It 

 is hoped that there is no prospect of the over- 

 fishing that may have contributed to the re- 

 cent drastic decline of the Peruvian anchovy 

 (Engraulis ringens) and the seabird species de- 

 pendent on it (Paulik 1971). However, the rela- 

 tive influence of overfishing and "El Nino" 

 oceanographic conditions on the decline re- 

 mains unclear. North Atlantic seabirds are, in 

 any case, more versatile in their feeding 

 habits (Belopol'skii 1961). But, the threat 

 may be a subtle one. The important point to 

 the seabirds may well be not merely the sur- 

 vival of a reasonably large capelin stock, but 

 the presence of capelin schools in high densi- 

 ties in certain areas or at certain seasons. 

 Lower densities might, for example, reduce 

 the foraging efficiency of breeding birds, and 

 hence their nesting success. The very large 

 common murre colony on Funk Island, New- 

 foundland (500,000 pairs: Tuck 1960), might 

 be particularly vulnerable. It lies close to an 

 area where capelin are especially abundant 

 and one which is already being exploited by 

 the developing fishery. 



References 



Anonymous. 1969. Seabird slaughter. Sports Fish. 

 Inst. Bull. 203:5. 



Belopol'skii, L. O. 1961. Ecology of sea colony birds 

 of the Barents Sea. (Transl. from Russian.) Israel 

 Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem. 

 346 pp. 



Biddy, C. J. 1971. Auks drowned by fishnets. Sea- 

 bird Rep. No. 2. 



Bourne, W. R. P. 1971. General threats to seabirds. 

 ICBP [Int. Counc. Bird Preservation] Bull. 

 11:200-219. 



Brown, R. G. B., D. N. Nettleship, P. Germain, C. E. 

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 220 pp. 



Collins, J. W. 1884. Notes on the habits and meth- 

 ods of capture of various species of seabirds that 

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Evans, P., and G. Waterston. 1976. The decline of 

 the thick-billed murre in Greenland. Polar Rec. 

 18:283-286. 



Holgersen, H. 1961. On the movements of Nor- 

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 mary.) Sterna 4:229-240. 



Lucas, F. A. 1890. Expedition to the Funk Island, 

 with observations on the history and anatomy of 

 the Great Auk. Rep. U.S. Natl. Mus., 1887- 

 1888:493-529. 



Murie, O. J. 1959. Fauna of the Aleutian Islands 

 and Alaska Peninsula. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., N. 

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Paulik, A. J. 1971. Anchovies, birds, and fishermen 

 in the Peru Current. Pages 156-185 in W. W. Mur- 

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Robbins, C. S., and D. W. Rice. 1974. Recoveries of 

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Templeman, W. 1945. Observations on some New- 

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U.S. Department of the Interior, Alaska Planning 

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