PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
PROTECTION OF ALBATROSSES AND PETRELS (17 January 2005)

That this House welcomes the British Antarctic Survey report published in Science Magazine which studied the journeys of 47 albatrosses and tracked their travels, discovering that albatrosses regularly circumnavigate the globe in as little as 46 days with typical journeys involving flights of nearly 600 miles daily; notes that there are 21 species of albatross, 19 of which are threatened with extinction; regrets that an estimated 100,000 albatrosses die annually on baited hooks as a result of long-line fishing across the world; fears further endangerment of these rare birds which can live for decades but which breed very slowly; hopes that this new information about migration patterns helps governments and fisheries commissions to devise conservation plans; supports the campaign by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to save the albatross across the globe; congratulates the UK Government on its ratification of the Agreement on the Conservation of the Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP); urges the UK Government to press the UK's Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha to ratify the agreement; and welcomes the implementation of conservation measures by ACAP signatory states to protect the sailor's friend.

Sponsored by:
Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat)