the clash | 193So there is overlap between birds and people at sea at a coarse scale.
Since it is unrealistic to expect the cessation of fishing for a hungry
world, it is pertinent to ask, from the perspective of seabird conserva-
tion, whether this overlap is detrimental to birds. The likely answer is
that there are some circumstances when the interaction is indeed detri-
mental and others where it is of little consequence. At that point the
logical ambition of seabird conservationists should be to concentrate on
identifying and, if possible, influencing those situations where seabirds
do suffer from fishing operations.
Certainly there are situations where birds and fishers seem able to
pursue their daily lives with minimal mutual interference. Macaroni
Penguins from South Georgia spend the southern winter entirely at sea,
a predicament deserving of sympathy. I would not wish to be swimming
in 15- metre swells in the Southern Ocean with no prospect of stepping
ashore from the 5°C water. This is also the time of year when the pen-
guin’s principal prey, krill, is swept up by commercial fishing. Norman
Ratcliffe from the British Antarctic Survey led a team investigating
whether this might be a problem.^17 With geolocator information from
the birds enabling plotting of where they were spending their time, and
drawing on year- round heart logger data which report on how fast pen-
guin hearts are beating in winter and therefore how much food they
require each day, Ratcliffe could map the distribution of penguin feed-
ing effort across a swathe of the Scotia Sea extending some 20 degrees
of longitude to the east and to the west of South Georgia. The map of
penguin effort barely overlapped with the fishing effort. And both par-
ties were taking only a small fraction, less than 1 percent, of the total
krill stock. Conclusion: live and let live.
Another factor that may alleviate the interaction is more subtle. The
oceans are very big places and it is perfectly possible that birds and fish-
ing vessels may be active in the same area, coarsely measured, and yet
rarely come into close and possibly harmful contact. Karine Delord and
a group of French ornithologists attached satellite transmitters to 21
breeding White- chinned Petrels to document their travels when forag-
ing away from the breeding colony on the Kerguelen archipelago situ-
ated at 50°S.^18 During incubation the petrels headed towards the Ant-
arctic continent 10–15 degrees to the south. During chick feeding, they