Bycatch of Loons Assessed in Coastal Arctic Char Fisheries in the Canadian Arctic

Abstract

Bycatch in fisheries remains one of the biggest conservation threats to seabirds globally, but there has been limited attention given to bycatch in the Arctic. Here, we worked with Inuit commercial fishers in the Cambridge Bay region of Nunavut to record bycatch of birds as part of a fish bycatch reporting initiative, in weir and gill‐net fisheries that target anadromous Arctic Char Salvelinus alpinus. Weir fisheries, and one of the gill‐net fisheries (executed in freshwater), had no bird bycatch, but 291 loons (family Gavidae) were captured over 5 years in one estuarine–marine fishery, yielding an exceptionally high bycatch rate of 15.7 birds/1,000 net‐meter‐days. One of the species caught, the yellow‐billed loon Gavia adamsii, is considered near threatened, but data on the population status of this species is insufficient to determine whether bycatch forms a significant threat. Nonetheless, deterrence efforts or other conservation options are needed in estuarine gill‐net fisheries to reduce bird bycatch.