Developing Ocean Zones for the Seabird-Safe Fishing Toolkit

The Seabird-Safe Fishing Toolkit aims to make evidence-based information available to assist tuna companies and those supporting them. This includes zoning of the world’s oceans according to the seabird species present, their threat status, and vulnerability to longline fishing bycatch. We provide an update on work undertaken to develop these ocean zones and describe the methods used. Results are presented for the Pacific Ocean on constituent layers to identify areas where i) birds of high conservation status are present (threaten species layer), ii) high species diversity occurs (species diversity layer) and, iii) where Procellaria petrels are present (Procellaria petrel layer). We also present initial overall ocean zones, which provide a comprehensive yet simple assessment and categorisation of relative risk of bycatch to ACAP species across the Pacific. We further outline the range of current limitations with the data and methods and discuss future potential development to enhance the assessment. We intend to continually improve the input data and methods used to describe ocean zones and welcome active collaboration with researchers and others involved in the collection and analysis of seabird distribution data.