United States

**Abstract:**

As a hotspot of seabird diversity, the Hauraki Gulf in Northern Aotearoa New Zealand is spoilt for choice when looking at seabirds as indicators of change in the marine environment. However, little research has been done on some of the most ubiquitous species that forage within the Gulf and have the greatest potential for tracking change in the nearshore marine environment. This research addresses this lack of data by linking environmental variables and energetic inputs with the physiology, movement, and breeding success of common Procellariiform species within the region. Part of the initial phase of this project has involved following the northernmost population of Fairy prions (Pachyptila turtur) on the Poor Knights Islands throughout the year, including the first insight into their migration movements, the nature of their foraging during the breeding season and physiological adjustments to ensure breeding success. By repeating this study over three years and investigating the interplay of environmental conditions and physiology, we plan to unravel the relationships between the breeding success of these birds and fluctuations in the marine environment. Results from the first two seasons will be presented.

**Authors:**

Edin Whitehead¹, Chris Gaskin², Brendon Dunphy¹

¹University of Auckland, ²Northern New Zealand Seabird Trust

3rd World Seabird Conference

Sentinels: The potential for seabirds to monitor marine change in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand

# Welcome everyone to ACL 2022!

The 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics is taking place May 22-27, 2022 as a hybrid event, in Dublin and online. We are happy to welcome all of you to this anniversary edition with an almost 50-50 in-person and virtual participation. <br><br>
The main conference program features oral presentations, in-person and virtual posters and demo sessions, a plenary session for our best paper presentations and awards, three amazing keynote events and two new initiatives of invited talks: Spotlight Talks for Young Rising Stars (STIRS) and The Next Big Idea Talks.  Posters (including Findings of ACL 2022) and demos are grouped by areas for both the in-person and the virtual sessions. For the virtual component, the talks will be on Zoom and the posters and the demos will be in GatherTown. The Student Research Workshop will have an oral session and a poster session as part of Poster Session 1. The program also features eight Tutorials and 28 Workshops. <br><br>

<br><br>
We wish you a wonderful conference! <br><br>
[**The ACL 2022 Organizing Committee**](https://www.2022.aclweb.org/organisers)
<br><br>
[**Conference Handbook**](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_BUCMfhMVrjG9E2e71aHdHeE28KSje0l/view?usp=sharing)<br>
[**Mini Handbook**](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qlBKl0wzmlVF1oCeMQl3BahLd9nLP5Ce/view?usp=sharing)<br>
[**Posters and Demo guides**](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UucMAoCNncIOaH1rMMDa0owuG9qgvJTG/view?usp=sharing)


ACL 2022

The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) is the premier international scientific and professional society for people working on computational problems involving human language, a field often referred to as either computational linguistics or natural language processing (NLP). 

technical paper

Welcome Seabirders!  

Welcome to Virtual World Seabird Conference 3 - vWSC3! Whether you are in your office or lab, at home, in a coffee shop or bar poaching some wifi, or at a remote field site or research vessel – we are very excited to welcome you to the third ever World Seabird Conference. 

We would like to thank ALL of you for being so patient as WSC3 was scheduled, postponed, rescheduled, revised to virtual, and scheduled again. Throughout all those iterations there was one message that remained perfectly clear – seabirders were eager to meet and share their science. If we could not meet in person then virtual it would have to be, but a 3rd WSC was something everyone wanted. That support and commitment helped the WSU Board of Directors and Member Societies sort through all of the challenges they faced to plan and hold this conference. 

The list of those that need to be thanked is long and, while we plan on recognizing many during the live closing plenary, it is important to do so here in writing as well. 

The Australasian Seabird Group was our Local Host for our plan to meet in Hobart, Tasmania. They invested substantial time and effort to find venues and plan events that we unfortunately were not able to visit. Nonetheless we appreciate their work on behalf of WSC3 and encourage all of you to thank them when you see their members in Gathertown or elsewhere during our virtual meeting. Their willingness to host created the initial excitement for WSC3 and without that our vWSC would not have been possible.

We also wish to thank the Science Program Committee, the Virtual Committee, and the Early Career Scientist Committee for their hard work planning the logistics, events, and schedule for vWSC3. These committees also had to deal with changing parameters and short timelines that made what is always a challenging task even more challenging. The Travel Awards Committee also invested time and effort in developing procedures for awarding travel funds that ultimately would not be implemented. 

Our ability to shift from an in-person to a virtual meeting, and to do so in a way that would be financially feasible, was due to the effective efforts of The International Fundraising Committee and to our financial sponsors. The IFC raised funds to support WSC3 and then, through the good relationships they built with sponsors, ensured we could re-envision how those funds could be used to support a virtual conference that would be affordable and high-quality.

We all owe the WSU Board of Directors and the Representatives of the Member Societies a great deal of thanks. They are the ones who manage the WSU and, for the past 18 months, have had to have a series of challenging meetings and conversations, have had to make a series of difficult choices, have had to do all of that while considering the short- and long-term health of WSU and the World Seabird Conferences, and did this while also managing their own challenges at their day jobs. We are grateful for their diligence, patience, foresight, and throughout all of the meetings, their collegiality. Also – a 6-year term is quite a commitment!

There would not be a WSC3 without a successful WSC1 and WSC2. Thanks go to the Pacific Seabird Group for their support of WSC1 in Victoria, Canada, and to the African Seabird Group for their support of WSC2 in Cape Town, South Africa. In each of these endeavors and for our current conference we were fortunate to work with a dependable and trustworthy partner in Podium Conferences. Michelle Smith and Marischal de Armond have become valued members of our team and have not only helped us plan conferences but have assisted and advised the WSU Chairs and Board on issues above and beyond conference planning. 

As we embark on our vWSC3 week we extend to all of you our thanks for showing up, for being patient, and most importantly for the work you do with seabirds. We are all part of a unique, global community that shares an interest, a fascination, and a passion for birds that make a living in our world’s oceans. We have advanced the science, conservation, and management of seabirds as well the ecosystems they inhabit. We are consistently impressed and motivated by the work you do. 

The WSU formed in 2010 because we saw the need for a global organization to address challenges at a global level. Over the past 11 years WSU has grown, adapted, and evolved to become the community that this week is making vWSC3 a reality. Enjoy the week, appreciate and support the friends and colleagues you have made in the community, and if you see us in a virtual hallway please stop and say hello! 

Thank you for the opportunity to serve all of you and the WSU over the past few years,

Nicholas Carlile, Interim Chair, WSU<br>
Patrick Jodice, 2nd Chair of the WSU<br><br>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rCc-s9eu6og" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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Join us for four days of science, networking and virtual engagement with delegates from around the world!

**Abstract:**

Seabirds are island ecosystem engineers. They transport nutrients from the marine environment to islands, influencing terrestrial community composition and food web structure and function. Globally seabirds are at risk, with invasive mammals their greatest threat. Declines in seabird populations pose a critical threat to many island ecosystems. Eradications of invasive mammals on islands are increasingly being undertaken to protect seabird populations and conserve island ecosystems. Assessing how these island ecosystems respond is essential for assessing whether desired conservation outcomes are being achieved, for identifying when active ecosystem restoration interventions are required and for providing feedback to eradication funders and stakeholders. However, it is challenging to do so. Ideally, long-term multi-species monitoring, both pre and post-eradication would provide the basis for assessing ecosystem recovery. Globally, monitoring following invasive species eradications is sporadic. Due to ecological complexity and financial and logistical challenges monitoring is often restricted to assessing select species responses. We are investigating the use of stable isotope analysis as a cost- and time-effective assessment technique for evaluating ecosystem recovery. Stable isotope analysis is well established as a technique for tracing nutrient flow through food webs. Stable isotope signatures provide integrative insights into ecosystem structure and function, without needing detailed field work on all ecosystem components. We are undertaking a large-scale natural experiment utilising over 30 islands around Australia, New Zealand and the sub-Antarctic. We are using nitrogen stable isotopes to trace flows of seabird-derived nutrients through food webs on islands at various stages following invasive mammal eradication. Comparisons will be made with never-invaded and still-invaded islands to investigate the progression of eradicated island ecosystem recovery. We are also investigating an array of temporal, spatial and environmental variables also likely to influence stable isotope levels to explain additional noise in the isotope data and ensure comparable sampling between islands is possible.

**Authors:**

Penelope Pascoe¹, Holly Jones², Rowan Trebilco³, Mark Hindell¹, Justine Shaw⁴, Christine Weldrick¹

¹University of Tasmania, ²Northern Illinois University, ³CSIRO, ⁴The University of Queensland

Seabird island ecosystem recovery through an isotopic lens

**Abstract:**

By their very nature and definition, parasites are often considered harmful or detrimental to their hosts. However, parasites that do not cause disease have the potential to be beneficial to hosts, especially by improving host immune function. This phenomena, termed immune system priming, increases the specificity and functionality of immune response as a result of immunological experience during early life. To explore the potential for immune system priming in a colonial seabird, crested tern chicks Thalasseus bergii were sampled before, during and after hatching to determine the exact period that the immune system begins production of white blood cells. This functionality was significantly earlier than a non-colonial bird, the red jungle fowl, indicating that colonial living may result in life-long improved immune function. Candidates for immune system priming were surveyed at two sites resulting in louse species as the favoured candidates. The potential for other ecto-parasites (ticks, fleas) to function as immune system primers and the need for targeted research and conservation of co-evolved ecto-parasites is discussed.

**Authors:**

Maggie Watson¹

¹Charles Sturt University

Seabirds and ectoparasites: the benefits of hosting parasites for colonial species

**Abstract:**

Accumulating evidence suggest that infectious diseases represent a significant threat to seabird populations. Characterizing the reservoir community of pathogenic infectious agents is key to identify, and potentially limit, pathogen re-emergence and spread. Due to their foraging behaviours, terrestrial predating and/or scavenging species have the potential to play critical roles in epidemiological dynamics by introducing, maintaining pathogens and/or enhancing their circulation within and among seabird colonies. On Amsterdam Island (Southern Indian Ocean), avian cholera, caused by Pasteurella multocida bacteria, has been causing recurrent die-offs of albatross and penguin nestlings since the 1980's, threatening the viability of these populations. We investigated the potential role of native brown skuas Stercorarius antarcticus and introduced rodents (Rattus norvegicus and Mus musculus) in avian cholera outbreaks by combining classical epidemiological tools with population and foraging ecology approaches. At the height of the avian cholera epizootics, both rodents and skuas carried P. multocida. Movement tracking of skuas revealed that they do not defend individual foraging territories, and that a given individual could visit several seabird colonies within a day, creating opportunities for pathogen spread at the island scale. In contrast, rodents may contribute to pathogen spread at a smaller, within-colony, scale. During winter, when most seabirds have migrated at sea, rodents still carried P. multocida bacteria, suggesting that they may play a critical role in the inter-annual maintenance of the bacteria. Based on these empirical results, we discuss the potential management strategies that could be designed to limit pathogen re-emergence and spread in seabird communities. Overall, this study highlight the benefit of broadening field investigations beyond classical epidemiological data and beyond the obviously affected species in order to better understand epidemiological processes in seabird communities and implement efficient surveillance and management measures.

**Authors:**

Amandine Gamble¹, Augustin Clessin², Baudouin Des Monstiers³, Lorien Boujot³, Romain Bazire², Romain Dedet⁴, Marine Bely², Erwan Lagadec³, Jean-Baptise Thiebot³, Audrey Jaeger³, Camille Lebarbenchon⁵, Pablo Tortosa⁵, Eric Thibault⁶, Christophe Barbraud⁷, Karine Delord⁷, Henri Weimerskirch⁷, Jérémy Tornos⁸, Romain Garnier⁹, Hubert Gantelet⁶, Nicolas Keck⁴, Thierry Boulinier¹⁰

¹University of California Los Angeles, ²Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, ³Réserve Naturelle Nationale des Terres Australes Françaises, ⁴Laboratoire Départemental Vétérinaire de l'Hérault, ⁵Université de la Réunion, ⁶Ceva Biovac, ⁷Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, CNRS, ⁸Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Ceva Biovac, ⁹Georgetown University, ¹⁰Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, CNRS

Investigating native and introduced predators involvement in pathogen maintenance and spread within and among endangered seabird colonies

**Abstract:**

Murres (both thick-billed, Uria lomvia, and common, U. aalge) are a culturally important food resource for the St. Lawrence Island community of Savoonga, Alaska. Savoonga hunters harvest adult murres in the spring as they return to their breeding colonies and collect murre eggs from cliffs during clutch initiation. Murres are internationally recognized as a marine ecosystem indicator species and abundance, reproductive success, and migration routes are monitored throughout the Arctic, primarily outside the United States. There is only one Arctic colony monitored in the state of Alaska. In 2018 and 2019, we tested photographic, analytical and outreach methods that would enable community-based monitoring of murre reproductive success at a colony near Savoonga. Our methods were aimed to 1) fill in information gaps at the state, regional and international management levels, and 2) engage high school students and the broader community in monitoring the health of a local resource. We found that cost-effective and easy-to-use RECONYX cameras provided adequate image resolution to identify breeding murres and track nest fates using open source software and methods described by Merkle et al. 2016. We developed and delivered two parts of a four-part series of lessons for high school students at Hogarth Kingeekuk Sr. Memorial School in Savoonga to trial classroom curricula to introduce and integrate high school science students in the photographic analysis process. We discuss the logistics of this project and our long-term goal of handing monitoring over entirely to the community.

**Authors:**

Jennifer Curl¹, Punguk Shoogukwruk², Alexis Will³

¹Alaska Department of Fish and Game, ²Native Village of Savoonga, ³University of Alaska Fairbanks

Monitoring murre reproductive success in Savoonga, Alaska.

**Abstract:**

Montague Island (MI), located off the south coast of New South Wales (NSW), Australia (36° 15' S, 150° 14' E) is an important breeding site for a number of seabird species. Following the eradication of feral animals from the island, two individuals of the threatened Gould's Petrel (Pterodroma leucoptera leucoptera) were found unexpectedly in 2012. This species previously bred only on Cabbage Tree Island (CTI) and in smaller numbers on nearby Boondelbah Island off the north coast of NSW. The number of breeding pairs of Gould's Petrels on MI increased to 39 in 2018-19 and as of March 2021, more than 70 nests have been recorded as being active. Establishment was possibly assisted by a sound attraction system installed in September 2014. Available habitat on MI, a largely treeless island dominated by low, dense vegetation, differs substantially from that of the main breeding areas on CTI (rock scree in palm forest gullies). Almost a third of nests on MI are created by tunnelling into the bases of clumping Basket grass (Lomandra longifolia) and Blue Tussock-grass (Poa poiformis). This is the first recorded instance of this non-burrowing species creating habitat for itself. These results indicate that even seemingly specialised seabirds can adapt their habitat use upon colonisation of new islands and breed in atypical habitat. Gould's Petrels breeding on CTI are known to forage to the east and south of Tasmania and westwards into the Great Australian Bight. As MI lies ~450 km closer to these foraging grounds, breeding on MI could be advantageous for harmonising incubation shifts and chick provisioning. This may already be reflected in breeding success on MI exceeding that of CTI in recent seasons. The establishment of this lower latitude breeding site may also facilitate the adaptive response of the species to climate change. These findings reinforce the importance of island restoration to allow for establishment of new seabird colonies, particularly for threatened species with highly restricted distributions.

**Authors:**

Yuna Kim¹, Emily Mowat², Nicholas Carlile³

¹Dr Kim's Conservation Solutions, ²BirdLife Australia, ³Department of Planning, Industry and Environment

A threatened seabird demonstrates adaptation to a novel habitat type following self-colonisation of a pest-free island

**Abstract:**

Townsend´s Shearwater (Puffinus auricularis, TOSH) is a species endemic to the Revillagigedo Archipelago in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. TOSH is one of the most endangered seabird species in North America listed as critically endangered with less than 100 breeding pairs. TOSH population has declined due to natural and anthropogenic processes such as volcanic eruptions and the introduction of alien invasive species. This work details the activities and results of a joint effort between national and international institutions for the monitoring and active restoration for the conservation of this species. In 2015, we started an intensive monitoring program to locate the latest nesting colonies and to determine its population status, using techniques such as auditory surveys, bioacoustics, detection dogs, trail cameras, and GPS devices. In 2017, we began an active restoration program using social attraction techniques (artificial burrows and sound systems). Through bioacoustics and auditory surveys, around 3,316 ha of breeding habitat have been surveyed on Socorro and Clarión islands. More than 40 recording sites with the presence of TOSH calls and 23 active burrows have been found on Socorro. Also, eight burrows were found on Clarión, representing the first nesting records for the island after 29 years. Burrow monitoring has shown that there is high variability in reproduction success despite 100% of breeding pairs attendance every year and new potential threats have been identified. In 2019, the nesting of the first pair of shearwaters was recorded in an artificial burrow and until now two chicks fledged successfully. Moreover, GPS fixes showed a maximum feeding range of 33 km from the nest site. Recent non-native mammal eradications have considerably improved habitat on Socorro and allowed the recolonization of Clarion. Nevertheless, the results suggest that despite mammal eradications, new active restoration techniques would be needed to enhance TOSH population recovery.

**Authors:**

Fernando Solis Carlos¹, Antonio Ortiz Alcaraz¹, Yuliana Bedolla Guzman¹, Federico Mendez Sanchez¹, Luciana Luna Mendoza¹, Evaristo Rojas Mayoral¹

¹Grupo de Ecologia y Conservacion de Islas, A.C.

Townsend's Shearwater (Puffinus auricularis), outcomes and new insights of the monitoring and conservation program of a critically endangered species

**Abstract:**

Parental care is commonly seen as a conflict between parents, although an increasing number of studies examines it in birds in the context of parental coordination. The pattern of coordination varies across species but its broad occurrence suggests an adaptive value: it may increase fitness via faster offspring growth rate and/or higher body reserves of the parents. Most studies have focused on passerines but coordination of parental performance have also been reported in two seabird species. Pelagic polar seabirds are a particularly interesting ecological group for studying parental care and coordination: harsh environmental conditions impose bi-parental care, and high variability within and across breeding seasons promotes flexibility in parental investment, in order to secure breeding success. In the Little Auk, Alle alle, an Arctic alcid adopting a bimodal foraging strategy (alternation of long trips with several short trips), parents do coordinate their foraging trips during the chick-rearing period, avoiding to perform long trips simultaneously, thus enabling a more even distribution of feeding through time. However, drivers and mechanisms of the coordination, and its consequences still remain open questions. We thus investigated to what extent the pattern of coordinated provisioning represents a flexible response to foraging conditions by examining coordination across five breeding seasons varying in terms of environmental conditions. We found high variability in the level of the coordination between pairs, and this variability was similar across all study seasons, which represented a wide range of experienced environmental conditions. Nevertheless, we found that when conditions were characterized by the delivery of higher-energy food loads, the level of coordination exhibited by the studied population was higher. These findings suggest that environmental conditions somehow affect parental coordination, but explain very little of the observed inter-pair variability. We now aim to keep investigating the drivers of coordination, to understand better what shapes its variability, by focusing on life-history traits and pair characteristics, such as breeding experience and strength of the pair bond.

**Authors:**

Antoine Grissot¹, Marion Devogel¹, Dorota Kidawa¹, Marcelo Araya-Salas², Dariusz Jakubas¹, Katarzyna Wojczulanis-Jakubas¹

¹University of Gdansk, ²Universidad de Costa Rica

Coordinated chick provisioning in an Arctic seabird, the Litlle Auk, Alle alle

**Abstract:**

Elusive nocturnal burrowing species are notoriously difficult to study and can go unnoticed for years in remote areas. One of these species is the Common Diving Petrel Pelecanoides urinatrix which is observed commonly at sea in the Southern Ocean and has a circumpolar breeding distribution. At the sub-Antarctic Marion Island, the species was breeding up to at least the 1950s before it was thought to have been extirpated by cat predation and its current breeding status was unknown until the present work. Once the species was discovered breeding in 2015 in the south of the island, transect estimates were conducted in October 2015 and February 2016 in the confirmed breeding area. A number of active nests were found over a ~2 km² area characterised by Poa cookii vegetation and a steep south-facing slope. In the 2019-20 breeding season, breeding phenology and success were studied from 36 nests located in the same breeding area. The birds were regularly calling from inside their burrows from mid-September. Laying started in early October with the first chick observed on 20 December. Hatching peaked in early January and chicks fledged from the end of February to mid-March. This breeding phenology is similar to the one detailed at the neighbouring Crozet islands. The breeding success recorded at the Marion Island colony was 58% for the 2019-20 breeding season. The species was also discovered breeding in other coastal areas around the island. The late discovery of this species breeding again at Marion Island questions whether it had gone unnoticed for years, or the elimination of cats in the early 1990s allowed for Common Diving Petrels to recolonize the island. If the latter, this recolonization may be short-lived as mice have been identified predating upon a number of surface nesting and burrowing seabirds.

**Authors:**

Stefan Schoombie¹, Maëlle Connan², Janine Schoombie³, Ben Dilley¹, Peter Ryan¹

¹FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, ²Nelson Mandela University, ³University of Pretoria

Evidence of common diving petrel breeding at Marion Island

**Abstract:**

The seabird bycatch rate has increased in the last decades due to the constant pressure on the resources, coupled with poor sustainable management, the rapid development of fisheries technologies and the lack of regulatory accompaniment. Incidental mortality in fisheries is one of the top threats to seabirds globally, making this group of birds the most endangered worldwide. Various technical contributions have been made to reduce incidental mortality. However, the fact that the problem continues, shows the need to delve into other factors, such as the social dimension and the importance of approaching it from other fields of knowledge. The objectives of the study were: 1) to compile the current regulations associated, directly or indirectly, with seabirds and their conservation, both at a national and international scale and 2) to analyze through word clouds technique the most representative terms present in the regulations. A total of eight national laws and ten international treaties were compiled. The frequency of occurrence of words at the national scale was: national, enforcement, authority, fishing, federal, environmental, council and fishing. Regarding international treaties, the most frequent words were: convention, authority, conformity, zone, sea, measures, law and ships. The fact that words such as fauna, biodiversity, conservation or birds are not among the most commonly used terms in treaties and laws on the subject, highlights the approaches of these documents and the paradigms that underpin them. On the other hand, there is a marked presence of words such as authority, fishing and ships. By comparing the content of both bodies of documentation, as a preliminary result, it is observed a predominance of words associated with geopolitical issues and fishing as an economic activity rather than a comprehensive approach of cross-border fisheries management focused, as well, on the conservation of marine mega fauna.

**Authors:**

Agustina Iwan¹, Sofía Copello¹, Soledad Arqueros², Laura Zulaica³

¹Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (UNMDP, CONICET), ²Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani (FSOC-UBA, CONICET), ³Instituto del Hábitat y del Ambiente (FAUD-UNMDP, CONICET)

Seabird bycatch in Argentina: a text mining analysis of the national and international regulations tools

**Abstract:**

Many industrial activities impose a threat on biodiversity, and it is unclear to what extent environmental regulations can reduce the threat of such activities. Bycatch in industrial fisheries is one of the greatest sources of mortality for seabirds, but a threat for which effective mitigation exists. Here we quantify whether the introduction of a new regulation that required the use of bird scaring lines reduced seabird mortality in two of the most hazardous fisheries in the South Atlantic. The Namibian hake demersal trawl and longline fisheries, estimated to be killing 20,000-30,000 birds/year, have been required to use bird-scaring lines since 2015. We used data from BirdLife International's Albatross Task Force and the Namibian Fisheries Observer Agency to quantify changes in seabird mortality in these fisheries before and after the introduction of these regulations. Our estimated bycatch rates in the longline fleet were 0.468 birds/1000 hooks (95% confidence interval 0.067-1.450) before regulations and 0.004 birds/1000 hooks (0.001-0.013) following their introduction, a 98.4% reduction. Our estimate suggests that 215 (1-751) seabirds were killed across this fleet in 2018 compared to 22,222 (3187-68,786) in 2009. In the trawl fleet, observers recorded seabird mortality resulting from interactions with trawl cables. The average rate of heavy interactions was 1.09 interactions/h (0.81-1.39) before the regulation came into effect, and 0.49 interactions/h (0.23-0.84) since then. Extrapolations based on the number of observed fatal interactions suggest 1452 (0-3865) birds were killed by this fleet in 2017 compared to 7030 (0-16,374) in 2009. The lower mortality reduction in the trawl fleet is likely due to incomplete implementation of regulations and highlights the importance of adequate enforcement for effective bycatch mitigation. Overall, we demonstrate that regulations that mandate that well-tested safeguards are used during industrial operations can have enormous benefits for the conservation of threatened species.

**Authors:**

Nina Da Rocha¹, Rory Crawford¹, Steffen Oppel¹, Stephanie Prince¹, Samantha Matjila², Titus Shaanika², Clemens Naomab², Oliver Yates³, John Patterson², Kaspar Shimooshili⁴, Ernest Frans⁵, Suama Kashava⁵

¹Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, ²Namibia Nature Foundation, ³CEFAS, ⁴University of Namibia, ⁵Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources

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