Australia, as a Member State of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) endorsed the FAO International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries in 1999. In 2009, FAO Member States agreed to include trawl and gillnet fisheries in the FAO guidelines for best practices to reduce incidental catch of seabirds in capture fisheries. As a result, Australia agreed to carry out an assessment of its longline, trawl and gillnet fisheries to determine if a seabird bycatch problem exists and adopt a National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Fisheries. While FAO has only extended its guidelines to gillnet and trawl fisheries, the proposed project will also investigate seabird interactions with purse-seine vessels as a proactive step in developing a comprehensive plan of action for reducing the incidental catch of seabirds during fishing operations.

An assessment of seabird interactions in longline fisheries was completed in 2008, however a national assessment of seabird mortality from trawl, gillnet and purse-seine fisheries in Australian waters is still to be conducted. Mortality of seabirds associated with trawl, gillnet and purse-seine fisheries is less documented but an increasingly recognised issue, especially in trawl fisheries where seabirds can get caught on the warp lines and drown, collide with other vessel cables or become entangled in the mesh of nets at the sea surface. In gillnet fisheries, seabirds can become entangled with the mesh or vessel cables while in purse-seine fisheries seabird may become entangled in the mesh of nets. The extent of such interactions is unknown and an assessment is required which will be used to inform the development of a National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Fisheries.