. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. SEA SCIENCE Hope for Migratory Sea Birds By Cynthia Henderson Vega I -f, as Emily Dickinson wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers," then migratory birds may represent the ultimate hope. Heeding nature's cyclical urging they take flight, sometimes traveling thousands of miles despite myriad natural and man- made adversities. For sea birds, these adversities include a particular danger — entanglement in fishing nets. The problem is significant, according to Walker Golder, ornithologist with the N
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. SEA SCIENCE Hope for Migratory Sea Birds By Cynthia Henderson Vega I -f, as Emily Dickinson wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers," then migratory birds may represent the ultimate hope. Heeding nature's cyclical urging they take flight, sometimes traveling thousands of miles despite myriad natural and man- made adversities. For sea birds, these adversities include a particular danger — entanglement in fishing nets. The problem is significant, according to Walker Golder, ornithologist with the National Audubon Society in Wilmington. Just how many birds are affected in North Carolina is unknown, he says, because of lack of research here. But that could be changing thanks to the efforts of a commercial fisher and the Fishery Resource Grant Program (FRG). A few years ago Tommy Rose saw a dramatic increase in birds killed in his nets while fishing for shad in North Carolina's northern coastal region. His wife, Donna Rose, says a lot of local fishers talked about having the same problem. "The guys would be heart-broken," she says, at finding so many birds in their nets. The Roses' concern resulted in FRG funding to study bird bycatch during the shad season from January to mid-April, 2000. Disruption from Hurricane Floyd may have skewed those findings, so FRG awarded the Roses a second grant to cover next year's shad season as Fishing nets often entangle sea birds, such as this Forster's tern. fliohi h) H ii/icf Holder, \uduhort Society The Roses want to see if submerged nets will catch fewer birds than floating nets. Donna Rose says the study also might show peak times and conditions for fishing when birds would less likely be caught. Doug Forsell, fishery and wildlife biologist for the Fish & Wildlife Service, Chesapeake Bay, found in a mid- Atlantic study that more than 2,000 birds were caught in gill nets from February through April 1998
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