3rd Meeting of the Stock and Ecological Risks Assessment (SERAWG3) - A framework for mapping the distribution of seabirds by integrating tracking, demography and phenology

Seabirds are amongst the most threatened birds in the world (Dias et al. 2019). Albatrosses and petrels are particularly vulnerable as they are long-lived, have a delayed sexual maturity, and low annual reproductive output. They have a wide at-sea distribution, occurring across all oceans and adjacent coastlines and islands. These extensive ranges overlap with multiple threats in national and international waters. Incidental bycatch in fisheries is one of the primary causes of population declines for many seabird species. Although attention focused initially on industrial longlining, there is a growing number of studies highlighting the negative impact on seabirds of other fisheries, such as trawl and artisanal fisheries. The impact of bycatch can affect elements of seabird populations in different ways. For instance, sex-and age-biases are common features of seabird bycatch that appear to be associated largely with differences in at-sea distributions. Accounting for different life-history stages is therefore essential in threat assessment in order to direct management and conservation efforts towards areas where they have the greatest impact on populations. The purpose of this paper is to identify areas and periods of greatest density for albatrosses and petrels within the South Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement (SIOFA) area. We overlapped the SIOFA boundary to the maps presented by Carneiro et al., (2019, 2020), which includes information from across different life-history stages, to give an overview of the importance of SIOFA area for albatrosses and petrels year-round and by year-quarter. We aimed to fill in gaps in the knowledge of at-sea distributions for these species.