Bycatch Programme Manager News Today

Seabirds evolved to spend their days soaring through ocean skies like fish evolved for swimming. But for thousands of UK seabirds, their lives are cut short in a desperate and doomed scramble to resurface for air, wings tangled in netting or beaks pierced by hooks.

Mitigation become law The Task Force quickly set to work and started meeting with the fishing industry to show them seabird ‘mitigation measures’ like bird-scaring lines – simple lines with colourful streamers towed behind the vessel that act as ‘scarecrows’ and keep birds away from baited hooks or dangerous trawl cables. After many thousands of hours at sea and in ports building support for these measures and the importance of protecting seabirds, in 2015 the team were successful in ...