Conserving seabirds competing with fisheries for food – observations from southern Africa and Marion Island

The paper describes moves towards accounting for the food requirements of some of southern Africa’s seabirds in management of pelagic fish stocks. It also considers moves towards establishing target populations for seabirds in South Africa, especially those of conservation concern. It describes anomalous breeding by several species of seabird at Marion Island in 1997. These are assumed to have resulted from an environmental anomaly that may have been related to the strong ENSO of 1997/98.