Santora et al.: Fishing activity and seabird-vessel attendance 241 Marine Ornithology 37: 241–244 (2009) FISHING ACTIVITY AND SEABIRD VESSEL ATTENDANCE NEAR THE NORTHERN ANTARCTIC PENINSULA

We conducted a survey to investigate the factors influencing the number of seabirds attending a research vessel during scientific trawling activities near the northern Antarctic Peninsula. Our objective was to assess whether seabirds exhibited varying levels of attendance that may be attributed to fishing activity. Counts of seabirds attending the vessel were made during non-fishing periods, net deployment, towing and retrieving. We also monitored environmental variables (e.g. pressure, wind speed and direction) and discards of fish and offal to determine whether those variables could be used to explain variability in seabird attendance. Three species, the Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris, Cape (or Pintado) Petrel Daption capense and Wilson’s Storm-Petrel Oceanites oceanicus were the most common seabirds attending the vessel. We found that abundance of seabirds did not vary between fishing activities, although the presence of discards caused an increase in the numbers of petrels and albatrosses. Our study is the first to examine seabird-vessel attendance to scientific trawling activities in Antarctic waters where a moratorium on commercial finfish fishing is in place. In comparison with other studies, the level of fishing conducted during this study does not come close to approaching that of commercial fishing (i.e. catch rate and fishing duration). Nevertheless, it is important to monitor seabird attendance at fishing vessels so that proper mitigation and conservation actions are met t