To determine the degree of expansion in the mid-west purse seine fishery that can be acccommodated without untoward effects on the seabird populations, information is required on fish and seabird population sizes, the amount of food required for successful rearing of a nestling, the fish species required by different bird species, the effect of oceanographic events on availability of different fish species to the birds and the ability of the birds to respond to such events by switching prey.
Final report
Over one million pairs of seabirds breed annually on the Houtman Abrolhos island group, 60 km off the mid-western coast of Australia, the largest seabird breeding station in the eastern Indian Ocean. This report describes in detail the diets and breeding patterns of six key seabird species that nest at the Abrolhos Islands.
The primary management goal of this report is to ensure that fishing activities off the mid-west coast do not adversely affect seabirds on the Abrolhos Islands. The main commercial fishing operations in the region target western rock lobster with traps, scallops with demersal trawls, a tropical sardine (but known locally as scaly mackerel) with purse seine and a variety of reef-associated and large pelagic fish species with hook and line.
