Guest blog – A call to arms for seabird champions, by Becky Ingham

Becky is a marine scientist who has worked in the fisheries industry in the Southern Oceans as an observer and been closely involved with conservation issues around fishing as Director of Falklands Conservation between 1997-2005. After this, following a return to the UK, Becky worked for the RSPB in Eastern England until 2013, when she joined the Hookpod team shortly after its incorporation and now heads up the company as the CEO.

Hookpod, a UK company, is responsible for a breakthrough in seabird bycatch mitigation. The Hookpod is a new product which will virtually eliminate seabird bycatch in pelagic longline fisheries for tuna and other species. It works by encapsulating the barb and the point of the hook during the setting operation, making it harmless to seabirds. A pressure release mechanism opens at depth to begin fishing and releases the hook.

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A call to arms for seabird champions – can you help increase Hookpod adoption?

Current tuna fishing practices result in the accidental and unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of seabirds each year and are threatening some species very existence.

But this easily avoided.  How?  Well a clever innovation called the Hookpod is proven to eliminate these deaths.  Many of you will have heard of this already (but if you haven’t, check out www.hookpod.com.)

So what’s the problem I hear you ask?  Whilst necessity has been the mother of driving invention here, effective implementation is challenging and far too often slow.

The birds don’t have time on their side and we at Hookpod remain determined, as ever, to challenge and change these embedded industry practices for the better.  We’re not fighting the industry, we have their support in many areas, but their willingness to change is masked in conservatism and caution.  As such, our success to-date has been remarkable given our limited resources; but we know we can and must go further and faster.

To do this we need sustained and continuous access to global media platforms, retailers and consumers to help us drive this necessary change in the tuna supply chains.  Only through this we will achieve our goal of eliminating seabird bycatch in this fishing sector.

We know Hookpods are proven to eliminate seabird bycatch

We know we have the support of numerous notable conservationists, fisheries organisations and regulators in recognising the game-changing nature of this device

We know we are not engaged in an activity that is in conflict with fishermen’s livelihoods – indeed quite the reverse

But it’s clearly not enough!

So what to do? We need to increase our reach,  our influence and our conversion rate.  To do that we are looking for each and any one of you to come forward with any contacts you may have in the media or food retailer worlds to see if they can help us accelerate the pace of change.

We’re looking to increase the awareness of Hookpods in general as any form of publicity is advantageous. We have a great story to lift the spirits in these hard times; a small British company with a clever invention and the potential to halt the decline of albatross species. We simply need more champions to tell this story.

With retailers in mind, we want more of them to look at their tuna supply chains and put pressure on fisheries to adopt best practice and use Hookpods. Everyone is seeking the edge in an increasingly competitive world to prove environmental credentials and the use of Hookpods providing ‘seabird friendly tuna’ would prove a great advertisement.

We know this is not an easy task. As a small company we have been working on this for several years, and now with results from the commercial roll-out in New Zealand, we have industry results to support our scientific research and conclude that Hookpods work.

This, the hard evidence is that vessels using Hookpods since January 2020 in this fishery are reporting zero bycatch on lines with Hookpods. We have eliminated seabird bycatch.

We now just need to get this message out to a wider audience so as to encourage further uptake. 

Hookpod has always relied on the support of people who love nature and seabirds. If you feel you might be able to help us in any way or have useful contacts, please get in touch with us at [email protected]

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