Seabird bycatch: trends, roadblocks, and solutions. Proceedings of the Symposium 26-27 February 1999

Recognizing the escalation of seabird bycatch as a marine conservation and fisheries management issue, the Pacific Seabird Group (PSG) invited us to convene a symposium on seabird bycatch at their 26th Annual Meeting in Blaine, Washington. Although several symposia have been held in North America on fisheries bycatch, none have addressed the incidental mortality of seabirds. The PSG symposium was titled “Seabird Bycatch: Trends, Roadblocks and Solutions.” Our purpose was to bring people together who have worked on seabird bycatch in various fisheries around the world and share information on (1) techniques to quantify this bycatch and its effect on populations, (2) obstacles to finding and implementing solutions, and (3) solutions to bycatch-specific technologies as well as the process by which they were developed and implemented. Ultimately, it was and is our hope that a sharing of experiences in this unique area would serve to identify successful processes and technologies that reduce bycatch in the long term as well as to trigger synergies and partnerships of those working in this important field.