How you can help

If one parent Black-footed Albatrosses is killed on a longline, the surviving parent is usually unable to rear the chick Zoom In

BirdLife's Save the Albatross Campaign involves a lot of behind-the-scenes advocacy work at large inter-governmental bodies.

However, there are many important steps that you as an individual can take to help us make this Campaign a success:

• Join your national BirdLife Partner. The more voices BirdLife has the more likely that we will be able to influence national and international policies. You can find contact details for all BirdLife's Partner organisations on this website
• Donate to BirdLife. Money is always needed to run a Campaign of this scale. You can donate to BirdLife directly through the link in the left-hand column of this page, or via www.savethealbatross.net
• Use your consumer purchasing power wisely. You can help enormously by being selective about the fish you buy. For example, only buy Southern Bluefin Tuna or Patagonian Toothfish (the latter is often sold as Chilean Sea Bass, Antarctic Black Hake or Mero) from a properly accredited seabird-friendly source. If the source is not stated, ask the retailer where it has come from. Simple questions like this go a long way to raising awareness of the issue
• If dining out and Southern Bluefin Tuna or Patagonian Toothfish are on the menu, ask the restaurant owner whether the fish is caught legally by a boat employing seabird mitigation measures. The main markets for restaurant Toothfish are in the US, Canada and Japan. Much Southern Bluefin Tuna is sold in Japan as Sashami
• Forest & Bird (BirdLife in New Zealand) produce a useful guide for consumers as to which are the best fish to eat, in terms of impact on seabirds
• Write to your national fisheries minister, local MP, or in the European Union, your Euro MP and ask them whether seabird by-catch from longliners is a problem for your nation, and if so, what is being done to tackle the problem. Also raise the issue of Flag of Convenience vessels and the pirate fishing industry and what steps are being taken to address this issue

Above all let your friends, relatives and colleagues know about the problem. The world's albatrosses are close to extinction unless we all take action now...