Recent trends in the west Greenland salmon fishery, and implications for Thick-billed Murres

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a high net-mortality of seabirds, particularly Thick-billed Murres (Uria lomvia), was associated with the west Greenland salmon fishery. Since 1972, the domestic fishery has been controlled by quotas and fishery opening dates and non-Greenlandic offshore drift-net fishery was phased out in 1975. These restrictions probably resulted in a substantial decrease in murre net-mortality. However, the Greenlandic fishery has changed considerably since 1972 when seabird bycatch was last examined in detail. Fishing vessels now use monofilament nylon nets almost exclusively; fishing effort has redistributed closer to murre breeding colonies and intensive drift-netting occurs offshore on the continental shelf. These factors, combined with a change in 1981 to a later fishing season have probably resulted in a renewal of significant murre net-morality at west Greenland.