Decadal increase in vessel interactions by a scavenging pelagic seabird across the North Atlantic

Jamie H. Darby; Manon Clairbaux; John P Quinn; Paul Thompson; Lucy Quinn; David Cabot; Hallvard Strøm; Thorkell Lindberg  Thórarinsson; Jed  Kempf; Mark J. Jessopp

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.033

Decadal increase in vessel interactions by a scavenging pelagic seabird across the North Atlantic

Jamie H. Darby^* (Corresponding Author), Manon Clairbaux, John P Quinn, Paul Thompson, Lucy Quinn, David Cabot, Hallvard Strøm, Thorkell Lindberg Thórarinsson, Jed Kempf, Mark J. Jessopp

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Fisheries waste is used by many seabirds as a supplementary source of food but interacting with fishing vessels to obtain this resource puts birds at risk of entanglement in fishing gears and resulting mortality. As a result, bycatch is one of the leading contributors to seabird declines worldwide3 22 , and this risk may increase over time as birds increasingly associate fishing vessels with food. Light level geolocators mounted on seabirds can detect light emitted from vessels at night year-round. We used a 16-year time series of geolocator data from 296
northern fulmars(Fulmarus glacialis) breeding at temperate and arctic colonies to investigate trends of nocturnal vessel interactions in this scavenging pelagic seabird. Vessel attendance has progressively increased over the study period, despite no corresponding increase in the number of vessels or availability of discards over the same timeframe. Fulmars are highly mobile generalist surface feeders, so this may signal a reduction in available prey biomass in the upper water column, leading to increased reliance on anthropogenic food subsidies and increased risk of bycatch mortality in already threatened seabird populations. Individuals were consistent in the extent they interacted with vessels, as shown in other species, suggesting that population-level increases may be due to a higher proportion of fulmars following vessels rather than changes at an individual level. Higher encounter rates were correlated with lower time spent foraging and a geographically restricted overwintering distribution, suggesting an energetic advantage for these scavenging strategists compared to foraging for natural prey.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	4225-4231.e3
Number of pages	11
Journal	Current Biology
Volume	33
Issue number	19
Early online date	6 Sept 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.033
Publication status	Published - 9 Oct 2023

Bibliographical note

J.H.D.’s position is funded by an Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme (EPSPG/2019/469), M.C. is funded by the H2020 X-Rotor project (101007135), and the majority of GLS devices are funded by the SEATRACK program (seatrack.seapop.no, Norwegian Research Council grant no. 192141). We would like to recognize and thank all those who assisted in the deployment and recovery of GLS devices, too many to mention individually. We are indebted to Pat and Liezl Grattan-Bellew for accommodating fieldwork on Little Saltee, Orkney Islands Council for access to Eynhallow, the landowners at Laxamyri for access to the Skjalfandi colony, and the Norwegian Armed Forces for support and accommodation on Jan Mayen. Particular thanks to Françoise Amélineau and Ewan Edwards for helpful input during discussions on this topic at an early stage, and to Vegard Bråthen for collating, curating, and delivering the data for analysis. Thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for exceptionally helpful and constructive feedback.

Data Availability Statement

All fulmar location data are available from SEATRACK, seatrack.seapop.no/map/. All anonymized fishing vessel data are available from global fishing watch, globalfishingwatch.org/map/. All original code has been deposited at www.zenodo.org and is publicly available as of the date of publication. The DOI is listed in the key resources table. Any additional information required to reanalyze the data reported in this paper is available from the lead contact upon request.

Keywords

Bycatch risk
biologging
prey reduction
northern fulmar
ecosystem effects
fisheries interactions

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Cite this

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title = "Decadal increase in vessel interactions by a scavenging pelagic seabird across the North Atlantic",

abstract = "Fisheries waste is used by many seabirds as a supplementary source of food but interacting with fishing vessels to obtain this resource puts birds at risk of entanglement in fishing gears and resulting mortality. As a result, bycatch is one of the leading contributors to seabird declines worldwide3 22 , and this risk may increase over time as birds increasingly associate fishing vessels with food. Light level geolocators mounted on seabirds can detect light emitted from vessels at night year-round. We used a 16-year time series of geolocator data from 296northern fulmars(Fulmarus glacialis) breeding at temperate and arctic colonies to investigate trends of nocturnal vessel interactions in this scavenging pelagic seabird. Vessel attendance has progressively increased over the study period, despite no corresponding increase in the number of vessels or availability of discards over the same timeframe. Fulmars are highly mobile generalist surface feeders, so this may signal a reduction in available prey biomass in the upper water column, leading to increased reliance on anthropogenic food subsidies and increased risk of bycatch mortality in already threatened seabird populations. Individuals were consistent in the extent they interacted with vessels, as shown in other species, suggesting that population-level increases may be due to a higher proportion of fulmars following vessels rather than changes at an individual level. Higher encounter rates were correlated with lower time spent foraging and a geographically restricted overwintering distribution, suggesting an energetic advantage for these scavenging strategists compared to foraging for natural prey.",

keywords = "Bycatch risk, biologging, prey reduction, northern fulmar, ecosystem effects, fisheries interactions",

author = "Darby, {Jamie H.} and Manon Clairbaux and Quinn, {John P} and Paul Thompson and Lucy Quinn and David Cabot and Hallvard Str{\o}m and Th{\'o}rarinsson, {Thorkell Lindberg} and Jed Kempf and Jessopp, {Mark J.}",

note = "J.H.D.{\textquoteright}s position is funded by an Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme (EPSPG/2019/469), M.C. is funded by the H2020 X-Rotor project (101007135), and the majority of GLS devices are funded by the SEATRACK program (seatrack.seapop.no, Norwegian Research Council grant no. 192141). We would like to recognize and thank all those who assisted in the deployment and recovery of GLS devices, too many to mention individually. We are indebted to Pat and Liezl Grattan-Bellew for accommodating fieldwork on Little Saltee, Orkney Islands Council for access to Eynhallow, the landowners at Laxamyri for access to the Skjalfandi colony, and the Norwegian Armed Forces for support and accommodation on Jan Mayen. Particular thanks to Fran{\c c}oise Am{\'e}lineau and Ewan Edwards for helpful input during discussions on this topic at an early stage, and to Vegard Br{\aa}then for collating, curating, and delivering the data for analysis. Thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for exceptionally helpful and constructive feedback.",

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T1 - Decadal increase in vessel interactions by a scavenging pelagic seabird across the North Atlantic

AU - Darby, Jamie H.

AU - Clairbaux, Manon

AU - Quinn, John P

AU - Thompson, Paul

AU - Quinn, Lucy

AU - Cabot, David

AU - Strøm, Hallvard

AU - Thórarinsson, Thorkell Lindberg

AU - Kempf, Jed

AU - Jessopp, Mark J.

N1 - J.H.D.’s position is funded by an Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme (EPSPG/2019/469), M.C. is funded by the H2020 X-Rotor project (101007135), and the majority of GLS devices are funded by the SEATRACK program (seatrack.seapop.no, Norwegian Research Council grant no. 192141). We would like to recognize and thank all those who assisted in the deployment and recovery of GLS devices, too many to mention individually. We are indebted to Pat and Liezl Grattan-Bellew for accommodating fieldwork on Little Saltee, Orkney Islands Council for access to Eynhallow, the landowners at Laxamyri for access to the Skjalfandi colony, and the Norwegian Armed Forces for support and accommodation on Jan Mayen. Particular thanks to Françoise Amélineau and Ewan Edwards for helpful input during discussions on this topic at an early stage, and to Vegard Bråthen for collating, curating, and delivering the data for analysis. Thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for exceptionally helpful and constructive feedback.

PY - 2023/10/9

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N2 - Fisheries waste is used by many seabirds as a supplementary source of food but interacting with fishing vessels to obtain this resource puts birds at risk of entanglement in fishing gears and resulting mortality. As a result, bycatch is one of the leading contributors to seabird declines worldwide3 22 , and this risk may increase over time as birds increasingly associate fishing vessels with food. Light level geolocators mounted on seabirds can detect light emitted from vessels at night year-round. We used a 16-year time series of geolocator data from 296northern fulmars(Fulmarus glacialis) breeding at temperate and arctic colonies to investigate trends of nocturnal vessel interactions in this scavenging pelagic seabird. Vessel attendance has progressively increased over the study period, despite no corresponding increase in the number of vessels or availability of discards over the same timeframe. Fulmars are highly mobile generalist surface feeders, so this may signal a reduction in available prey biomass in the upper water column, leading to increased reliance on anthropogenic food subsidies and increased risk of bycatch mortality in already threatened seabird populations. Individuals were consistent in the extent they interacted with vessels, as shown in other species, suggesting that population-level increases may be due to a higher proportion of fulmars following vessels rather than changes at an individual level. Higher encounter rates were correlated with lower time spent foraging and a geographically restricted overwintering distribution, suggesting an energetic advantage for these scavenging strategists compared to foraging for natural prey.

AB - Fisheries waste is used by many seabirds as a supplementary source of food but interacting with fishing vessels to obtain this resource puts birds at risk of entanglement in fishing gears and resulting mortality. As a result, bycatch is one of the leading contributors to seabird declines worldwide3 22 , and this risk may increase over time as birds increasingly associate fishing vessels with food. Light level geolocators mounted on seabirds can detect light emitted from vessels at night year-round. We used a 16-year time series of geolocator data from 296northern fulmars(Fulmarus glacialis) breeding at temperate and arctic colonies to investigate trends of nocturnal vessel interactions in this scavenging pelagic seabird. Vessel attendance has progressively increased over the study period, despite no corresponding increase in the number of vessels or availability of discards over the same timeframe. Fulmars are highly mobile generalist surface feeders, so this may signal a reduction in available prey biomass in the upper water column, leading to increased reliance on anthropogenic food subsidies and increased risk of bycatch mortality in already threatened seabird populations. Individuals were consistent in the extent they interacted with vessels, as shown in other species, suggesting that population-level increases may be due to a higher proportion of fulmars following vessels rather than changes at an individual level. Higher encounter rates were correlated with lower time spent foraging and a geographically restricted overwintering distribution, suggesting an energetic advantage for these scavenging strategists compared to foraging for natural prey.

KW - Bycatch risk

KW - biologging

KW - prey reduction

KW - northern fulmar

KW - ecosystem effects

KW - fisheries interactions

U2 - 10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.033

DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.033

M3 - Article

SN - 0960-9822

VL - 33

SP - 4225-4231.e3

JO - Current Biology

JF - Current Biology

IS - 19

ER -

Decadal increase in vessel interactions by a scavenging pelagic seabird across the North Atlantic

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

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