Finding the missing pieces: working to solve the fisheries bycatch puzzle

Seabird bycatch in industrial fisheries has been the focus of research and conservation concern since the late 1980s (Weimerskirch & Jouventin, 1987; Bartle, 1991; Brothers, 1991). Although bycatch, or incidental capture, of seabirds is only one of several human-mediated disturbances including invasive species, toxin contamination, disease and climate change (Arcos et al., 2002; Finkelstein, Gwiazda & Smith, 2003; Weimerskirch, 2004) that threatens their populations, fisheries bycatch has been implicated as a primary threat to a number of declining seabird populations (Weimerskirch et al., 1997; Tuck et al., 2011).