Jon Anderson wrote:

> No murrelets were observed and the birds that were impacted
> appear to have been Common Murres and Rhinoceros Auklets, but
> nowhere near the "Thousands" of birds that we see on the TV
> 30-second sound bites for Greenpeace.

Believe me 'thousands' of birds dying in gill nets is an UNDERSTATEMENT. I
banded about 5000 Common Murres a year in Caithness, Scotland. The
overwhelming cause of death in banding returns was drowning in fishing nets.

On a purely subjective basis. with a recovery rate of about 5% of birds
banded. Of that 60% (3% of the total) are dying in fishing nets. There are
roughly 200,000 Common Murres breeding along 15 miles of the Caithness coast.
Therefore the annual morality due to fishing nets is at least 6000 birds.
Multiply this up for the rest of the North Sea colonies and the numbers start
to get interesting !!!!

In "The Atlantic Alcidae" by Tim Birkhead et al, it is reported that the
equivalent of annual production of Thick-billed Murres for West Greenland is
drowned in Salmon nets. The figure is, get this, 4,000,000 birds !!!!!!
The numbers of birds killed as a result of the drift net fisheries over the
major oceans are even scarier.

The inshore fishing industry is moving forward on this issue and that is to
be congratulated. I don't mean to flame anyone but I think the problem is
nowhere near being recognised never mind solved.


Stuart MacKay - a Greenpeace member, apparently for a very good reason !!!!!!