SEA 



SCIENCE 



Hope for 

 Migratory 

 Sea Birds 



By Cynthia 

 Henderson Vega 



I 



-f , as Emily Dickinson wrote, 

 "Hope is the thing with feathers," then 

 migratory birds may represent the ultimate 

 hope. Heeding nature's cyclical urging they 

 take flight, sometimes traveling thousands 

 of miles despite myriad natural and man- 

 made adversities. 



For sea birds, these adversities include 

 a particular danger — entanglement in 

 fishing nets. The problem is significant, 

 according to Walker Golder, ornithologist 

 with the National Audubon Society in 

 Wilmington. Just how many birds are 

 affected in North Carolina is unknown, he 

 says, because of lack of research here. 



But that could be changing thanks to 

 the efforts of a commercial fisher and the 

 N.C. Fishery Resource Grant Program 

 (FRG). A few years ago Tommy Rose saw 

 a dramatic increase in birds killed in his 

 nets while fishing for shad in North 

 Carolina's northern coastal region. His 

 wife, Donna Rose, says a lot of local fishers 

 talked about having the same problem. 

 "The guys would be heart-broken," she 

 says, at finding so many birds in their nets. 



The Roses' concern resulted in FRG 

 funding to study bird bycatch during the 

 shad season from January to mid- April, 

 2000. Disruption from Hurricane Floyd 

 may have skewed those findings, so FRG 

 awarded the Roses a second grant to cover 

 next year's shad season as well. 



Fishing nets often entangle sea birds, such as this Forster's tern. 



fliohi h) H ii/icf Holder, \uduhort Society 



The Roses want to see if submerged 

 nets will catch fewer birds than floating 

 nets. Donna Rose says the study also might 

 show peak times and conditions for fishing 

 when birds would less likely be caught. 



Doug Forsell, fishery and wildlife 

 biologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife 

 Service, Chesapeake Bay, found in a mid- 

 Atlantic study that more than 2,000 birds 

 were caught in gill nets from February 

 through April 1998. Most (68 percent) were 

 red-throated loons, followed by common 

 loons (21 percent). Other birds included 

 northern gannets, cormorants and red- 

 breasted merganzers. 



Forsell says one problem is that birds 

 begin their return northward as water 

 warms, and fish follow the warm water. 

 The coincidence puts fishing nets and birds 

 in the same place at the same time. 



Lesser and greater scaup — ducks 

 whose winter stays in Carolina coastal 

 waters coincide with shad fishing season — 

 are a declining species. While many 



scientists look for contaminants as a 

 possible cause, Forsell says the role of 

 fishing nets should also be studied. Scaup 

 can be caught in nets when they dive for 

 grasses and shellfish. 



Fish caught in nets may lure other 

 birds. Merganzers race horizontally 

 underwater in pursuit of fish — sometimes 

 straight into fishing nets. Pelicans try to 

 pull fish out of nets, Golder says, and can 

 get heads or wings caught or even become 

 snagged by bands placed on their legs for 

 scientific studies. 



Loons are a particular concern, says 

 Forsell. With legs set far back on a long, 

 goose-sized body, the loon is almost 

 comically awkward on land but is an expert 

 diver — therefore vulnerable to fishing 

 nets. 



Further studies might show ways to 

 minimize that vulnerability. But ultimately, 

 hope for migratory birds may come from 

 those who use the waterways, recognize 

 problems and work to find solutions. □ 



COASTWATCH 25 



