WCS 3-Sentence Science

Can Fisheries and Seabirds Co-Exist?

October 31, 2019

CREDIT: ANDREA RAYA REY

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Andrea Raya Rey on the relationship between fisheries and seabirds in Patagonia.

1. Fisheries on the Patagonian shelf in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean are considered a principal cause of seabird population declines.
2. Researchers used a telecoupling framework — which incorporates natural and socioeconomic interactions over large distances — to present a holistic look at the dynamics of threatened seabird/fisheries interactions for the Patagonian Shelf over space and time.
3. Results highlighted specific complexities, bottlenecks, and sensitivities that must still be addressed to achieve both biodiversity conservation and management, as well as fisheries sustainability, not only in this study area, but worldwide.

Study and Journal: “Telecoupling analysis of the Patagonian Shelf: A new approach to study global seabird-fisheries interactions to achieve sustainability” from Journal for Nature Conservation
WCS Co-Author(s): Andrea Raya Rey (Lead), WCS Latin America and Caribbean Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.