Many of us who live near the beach or spend a lot of time on it, are aware, even anecdotally, that seabird numbers seem to have dropped dramatically over the last decade or so. There are a lot of reasons this is happening, from small things like dogs allowing to roam the beach daily on walks, to more large scale issues, like the recent findings of the derelict net program. And here’s another more likely wide spread variable, overfishing.This article follows the one I brought up last week about the law suit against NOAA for allowing overfishing of bait stocks.
Overfishing hurts seabirds not only by entangling them in fishing gear but by depriving them of prey. When the amount of forage fish drops below one-third of its maximum, seabirds of many species start to have fewer chicks.
Seabird-fish research shows threshold for danger http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/01/1965290/seabird-fish-research-shows-threshold.html