Spatial and temporal patterns of beached seabirds along the Chilean coast: Linking mortalities with commercial fisheries

The Chilean coast holds a high seabird diversity and also extensive fisheries that interact with birds producing bycatch. We used data on beached seabirds reported by news media to depict spatial and temporal patterns of fishery-related seabird mortality and correlated these data with the spatial and temporal fishing effort of the three main purse-seine fleets operating in south-central Chile (33 to 40°S). Between 2005 and 2019 we detected 97 mortality events reporting >19,000 beached seabirds attributed to bycatch. Mortality was recorded between 18 and 53° S (~3800 km of coastline), affecting 16 seabird species, with 90% concentrated between 33 and 40°S (800 km), exactly where purse-seine fleets operate. Sooty shearwater (Ardenna grisea) comprised 70% of all dead birds recorded. Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) and guanay cormorants (Phalacrocorax boungainvillii) were also affected. Mortality events of Sooty shearwaters was highest (P