Commonly Encountered Seabirds

Commonly encountered seabirds include shearwaters, storm petrels, and boobies, but the birds that are affected most by longline gear are albatrosses and petrels.

Albatrosses and petrels can live for over 60 years and lay only one egg every one to two years. This means that seabird bycatch during fishing operations has a lasting impact on the population. They also generally mate for life, and one bird’s death means that its partner may never reproduce again. There are 22 species of albatross; 15 are threatened with extinction, making them the most endangered group of birds in the world.

Albatrosses fly thousands of kilometers on a single feeding trip, mostly in cooler, higher-latitude waters including the North and South Pacific, the southern Indian Ocean and the south Atlantic Ocean.

Many albatross species travel across different oceans, and some complete circumnavigations of the world. But other seabirds are found in warmer waters or are specific to a region. In the next section, we cover the major types of seabirds.