UPY 2024

UPY  Marine Conservation - Highly Commended
'Net Loss'
Simon J Pierce

Runde Island off Norway is a seasonal home to over half a million seabirds, including these northern gannets. The gannets normally build their nests from seaweed and rass floating on the ocean’s surface near the island. Increasingly, the seabirds are instead using discarded netting, ropes, and packaging straps from fisheries into their nests. This fishing waste is becoming more common than the natural materials they instinctively gather. A recent survey at Runde found that 97% of nests contained man-made debris. Newborn chicks, and even adult gannets, are routinely entangled and killed in these tough and onbiodegradeable materials. Reduced fishing pressure near nesting colonies has been shown to lead to fast and measurable declines in the number of affected nests, pointing to a range of potential solutions: reduce pollution from the fishing boats, minimise net fisheries in the local region, or create protected areas that allow the ecosystem to recover.

Judge's comment: We have given them no choice. Their natural materials of seaweed and grass have been smothered by indestructible ghost traps which fishermen have lost or intentionally discarded. We, and the fishermen especially, should hang our heads in shame and then do everything in our power to reverse this.
- Peter Rowlands