Also, hooked birds float and prevent the lines from sinking to the correct depth for fishing - a further waste of effort. During dissections of drowned birds that have been recovered, a record of 22 baits have been found in a single albatross stomach. On average each drowned bird has taken four to six baits before being caught. In some fisheries more than half the bait never makes it past the birds - bad news for the fishermen and the birds. An example of a threatened seabird is the Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus , which has an estimated 174 pairs breeding on a single island, Toroshima, near Japan.
Individuals are at risk from longlines.
In order to protect them the Pacific Groundfish fisheries can be closed if more than two birds are caught in a season. This has prompted the relevant longline fishery organisations to engage in active conservation of the critically endangered bird. The longline industry for the Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides in the Southern is responsible for an annual kill of several thousand birds, mostly albatrosses and Whitechinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis . This figure may have decreased as new measures have been put in place to reduce bycatch. There are solutions to the bird bycatch problem, which are neither overly restrictive nor very expensive to the fishery - especially in the light of the economic value of the fish and the aesthetic value of the birds that are being caught.