Hanne Wiesener found 53 dead seagulls on the shore in Jøkelfjord i
North Troms. They most likely drowned, says the professor of marine biology.
– It is pure massacre down here on the shore, Hanne Wiesener adds the newspaper Framtid i Nord.
She and her husband live in Jøkelfjord in Kvænangen. On Thursday, the husband was working down on the shore when he came up to the house and asked her to come down with him to see something.
– And then we saw an enormous number of dead seagulls lying in the spring stones. We counted 53 dead seagulls in about a hundred metres, she says.
Wiesener, who is deputy mayor of Bygdelista in Kvænangen, says that the seagulls looked relatively fresh.
– The seagulls were not rotten, but they had been lying there for at least two or three days, she estimates.
– How did you react when you saw this?
– “Oh my!” was what I thought. You start to think about bird flu or whether they may have gotten into the nets on the herring boats – because there has been a lot of herring fishing outside our living room windows. But we have no idea, we have forwarded it to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and SNO in Alta, so they are on the case.
Will investigate the matter
Ken Gøran Uglebakken is a senior adviser at the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate (SNO) in Alta. He confirms that they have received the notification from Hanne Wiesener and the man, and says that they have forwarded it to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.
– Normally they send some of the birds to the veterinary institute, which in turn checks out what it might be. Something has happened when so many dead seagulls lie in a small area, he says.
Section chief Hilde Haug in the Norwegian Food Safety Authority has not had time to look at the case on Thursday, but that they will investigate it further.
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Probably drowned while fishing for herring
It is not the first time that large quantities of dead seagulls have been found on the shore in Troms.
In 2017, professor of arctic and marine biology at UiT and nature photographer, Audun Rikardsen counted 350 dead seagulls on the shore in Bellvika on Kvaløya outside Tromsø.
The seagulls had then probably lost their lives due to a seine net used during herring fishing. Rikardsen believes the same has apparently happened this time in Jøkelfjord.
– What often happens is that the seagulls are very hungry at this time, and they also fly into the bill, says Rikardsen to VG.
If there is also bad weather, the seagulls can be washed into the herring net. The danger is that they drown, he explains.
In Jøkelfjord in Kvænangen there has been both herring fishing and bad weather the last time.
– If they have found 50 birds, there are guaranteed to be many that have not been found, says Rikardsen.
The Norwegian Institute for Natural Research (NINA) has since last autumn researched the phenomenon of “seagull drowning” during herring fishing. The aim of the research project is to find out how this can be avoided.
– The challenge is also that some of the seagull species are red-listed, says Rikardsen.
The herring gull has been red-listed from 2021 under the category vulnerable. They are protected from hunting and egg collection, writes Large Norwegian encyclopedia.
Here are the dead seagulls in Nord-Troms found:
