Tern trapping along the Senegalese coast

The trapping of terns in the West African wintering areas has received much attention during the 1970s and 1980s (Mead 1978, Dunn 1981, Meininger & Boerma 1988, Staav 1990). These authors all report of local boys trapping terns by means of nooses or lines with hooks, baited with fish. Although some of the birds are killed to serve as food, it seems that most terns are caught for fun. Rings are of little interest for the children. Some take the trouble to hand them over to the local authorities, most of the rings, however, are probably thrown away or lost. Sometimes the rings are being fashioned into bracelets and necklaces. It appears from the above-mentioned papers, that along the coasts of Ghana, Senegal, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Togo and Liberia, many thousands of terns were caught annually in these years. Hence, tem catching was believed to be an important mortality factor, in particular in juvenile terns. Since the 1980s, several education programmes have been started to discourage the trapping of terns. In Ghana this was effective, but for most other countries it is not known whether these programmes actually worked. Ring recoveries indicate that the trapping of terns has not completely ceased since then (Becker & Wendeln 1996, Stienen & Brenninkmeijer 1996), but the present extent of this practice remains unclear. In 1991, the French BirdLife Partner ‘Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux’ (LPO) and the National Parks Authority of Senegal started a project to raise awareness amongst school children for the problem of tern catching. The project was funded by the Dutch and Swiss BirdLife Partners (‘Vogelbescherming Nederland’ and ‘Association Suisse pour la Protection des Oiseaux’, respectively) and the Dutch nature conservation society (‘Vereniging Natuurmonumenten’). Project members of the LPO came across many Senegalese people (mainly children) wearing ‘jewellery’ made of rings. A search along several beaches led to the finding of many more rings. These recoveries are one of the few tools at our disposal to estimate mortality caused by tern catching.