Reynard Loki
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Killing birds to the brink of extinction is yet another sad by-product of commercial longline fishing
If someone has -- metaphorically speaking -- "an albatross around their neck," it means that they have some obstacle to overcome.
The metaphor comes from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the famous long poem written in 1797 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and it refers to the punishment given to the sailor who killed an albatross, that was considered to be a "bird of good omen."
Today, this mythic seabird is in danger of going extinct due to destructive fishing methods that are used to satisfy the huge, global appetite for tuna and swordfish.
According to a new study conducted by the UK-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), "In tuna and swordfish fisheries, albatrosses and other seabirds die on the end of longline hooks in unsustainable numbers and, for many species, this is their greatest extinction threat."
Out of the 37 species of seabirds at risk for extinction due to longline fishing, 16 are albatrosses.
"The populations of albatrosses are declining faster in the South Atlantic than any other ocean," said Dr. Cleo Small, an albatross expert working with the RSPB and BirdLife International.
"For example, the wandering albatross – possessing the largest wingspan of any bird – is rapidly declining on South Georgia, and links have been made between these declining populations and longline fishing within the ICCAT fishery. This situation is needless, because the technology exists to prevent these deaths."
Longline fishing is also to blame for the deaths of endangered loggerhead sea turtles.
The albatross first appeared about 70 million years before Homo sapiens. But now, in just a few decades, the human hunger for fish may wipe them out completely.
It seems that two centuries after Coleridge penned his famous verse, fish consumption -- and the bad fishing practices that it entails -- has become an albatross around mankind's hungry, collective neck.
Get involved at 13.7 Billion Years.
If someone has -- metaphorically speaking -- "an albatross around their neck," it means that they have some obstacle to overcome.
The metaphor comes from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the famous long poem written in 1797 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and it refers to the punishment given to the sailor who killed an albatross, that was considered to be a "bird of good omen."
Today, this mythic seabird is in danger of going extinct due to destructive fishing methods that are used to satisfy the huge, global appetite for tuna and swordfish.
According to a new study conducted by the UK-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), "In tuna and swordfish fisheries, albatrosses and other seabirds die on the end of longline hooks in unsustainable numbers and, for many species, this is their greatest extinction threat."
Out of the 37 species of seabirds at risk for extinction due to longline fishing, 16 are albatrosses.
"The populations of albatrosses are declining faster in the South Atlantic than any other ocean," said Dr. Cleo Small, an albatross expert working with the RSPB and BirdLife International.
"For example, the wandering albatross – possessing the largest wingspan of any bird – is rapidly declining on South Georgia, and links have been made between these declining populations and longline fishing within the ICCAT fishery. This situation is needless, because the technology exists to prevent these deaths."
Longline fishing is also to blame for the deaths of endangered loggerhead sea turtles.
The albatross first appeared about 70 million years before Homo sapiens. But now, in just a few decades, the human hunger for fish may wipe them out completely.
It seems that two centuries after Coleridge penned his famous verse, fish consumption -- and the bad fishing practices that it entails -- has become an albatross around mankind's hungry, collective neck.
Get involved at 13.7 Billion Years.
