About ¼ of recreational fishers in New Zealand reported seabirds disrupting their fishing over a 12 month period (87,000 interactions).

Most of these interactions are probably harmless, but hooked and entangled birds aren't uncommon.

For most recreational fishers who had interactions with seabirds, it only happened once or twice. Just under 1/4 had interactions several times and 5-10% reported interactions most trips.

Interactions between recreational fishers and seabirds tend to mainly be with gulls, petrels and shags.

Data are from the Exit Survey from the 2017/18 National Panel Survey. This is being combined with boat ramp survey data at the moment to provide a report on the impact of recreational fishers on seabirds.

https://www.catchfishnotbirds.nz/post/insights-from-the-rena-disaster

The Rena Spill in 2011 gave us one of the first solid indications of how much impact recreational fishers could be having on seabirds.

Flesh-footed shearwaters especially. Their Conservation Status is Threatened - Nationally Vulnerable.

Qualitative data from 2010 also suggests recreational fisher interactions with sea birds in the tens of thousands.

Again most of these are probably not fatal.

But the ones that are are potentially having a significant impact on threatened species.

https://www.dragonfly.co.nz/publications/pdf/Abrahametal_2010_AEBR64.pdf

What about commercial fishing?

Yes they kill seabirds, and yes they kill far too many. That needs to change.

The point of this thread though is to highlight how we often avoid discussing topics that are uncomfortable to us, especially when we are part of the problem.