Aotearoa New Zealand is the seabird capital of the world. More seabird species breed here than anywhere else – but about 90 percent of our seabirds species are either at risk or threatened with extinction.
That includes New Zealand's most endangered albatross - the Antipodean albatross. This albatross is particularly vulnerable to being accidentally caught by longline fishing vessels.
WWF-New Zealand has long advocated for better protection of our seabirds and in 2024 we secured a major victory with the introduction of stronger rules to prevent our seabirds being caught in longline fishing lines as accidental ‘bycatch’.
After years of public campaigns and petitions, parliamentary submissions, meetings with officials and ministers, and efforts to raise the profile of this issue in the media, on top of our long-standing work to get cameras on board fishing boats, the Government finally agreed to strengthen bycatch mitigation measures for the surface longline fishing fleet.
All commercial fishers using surface longline fishing methods are now required to either use special hook shielding devices or implement all three of the key seabird bycatch mitigation measures at the same time.
This win followed the roll-out of cameras on boats for the first four priority groups of fishing vessels, and with that, a greater understanding of what was happening out at sea. We have long campaigned for having cameras on boats to provide much needed transparency, including accurate and independent data on accidental by-catch, and help us make informed decisions on how to protect our marine life.
With cameras on boats currently limited to the inshore fleets, we are continuing to advocate for the continued rollout of more cameras, and for our fisheries management to be based on good science and evidence.
Since many of our birds are dying out on the high seas, we also need to keep up the pressure to make these best practice mitigation measures mandatory internationally. This is a position that New Zealand can now much more credibly advocate for – and has already – now that we are finally ‘walking the talk’ at home.
At the same time, we continue to work with the Southern Seabirds Trust, which WWF-New Zealand helped establish in 2002.
The Trust has an innovative and collaborative model and works directly with commercial and recreational fishers to reduce harm to New Zealand seabirds from fishing.