Summary

Description

Annual mortality of over 160,000 seabirds in the Japanese mothership fishery is apparently not causing significant harm to seabird populations in the North Pacific. Little is known, however, of the impacts of the other driftnet fisheries on seabirds in the North Pacific. The collective impacts of all these fisheries may be significant. It is clear that in some years thousands of breeding birds are killed in the mothership fishery although we have been unable to demonstrate that these losses are decreasing populations of breeding birds in the western Aleutian Islands. We recommend that a no fishing zone be established around the western Aleutian Islands. This fishingfree zone would decrease the mortality of both breeding and nonbreeding seabirds in the U.S. Fishery Conservation Zone. Based on the results of our research, we suggest that a closure out to 5060 nautical miles may be appropriate.