by Playfuls Staff |
4th October 2006
U.S. biologists say fishermen catch and kill about 1 percent of the world's waved albatrosses a [more] year.
"If that happens every year, that is not sustainable," said Jill Awkerman, a Wake Forest graduate student who is the lead author of the study. "In a matter of decades, you could be talking about extinction."
Awkerman's research shows the waved albatrosses are unintentionally killed when caught in fishing nets or on fishing hooks, but are also intentionally harvested for human consumption.
Wake Forest Biology Professor David Anderson and his research team have studied survival rates of waved albatrosses on Española Island in the Galapagos Islands, where nearly all waved albatrosses in the world nest and breed.
Identification bands from 23 waved albatrosses killed during 2005 were returned to the researchers by fishermen. The researchers put bands on 2,550 albatrosses, so nearly one of every 100 birds is being killed unintentionally or intentionally by fishermen.
More males (82 percent) were killed than females, Awkerman said, noting that's troubling because albatrosses require both parents to raise chicks; fewer males in the population limit the number of breeding pairs.
The research appears online in the journal Biological Conservation.
© 2006 UPI
