Data from: How do seabirds modify their search behaviour when encountering fishing boats?

Seabirds are well known to be attracted by fishing boats to forage on
offal and baits. We used recently developed loggers that record accurate
GPS position and detect the presence of boats through their radar
emissions to examine how albatrosses use Area Restricted Search (ARS) and
if so, have specific ARS behaviours, when attending boats. As much as
78.5% of locations with a radar detection (contact with boat) during a
trip occurred within ARS: 36.8% of all large-scale ARS (n=212) and 14.7%
of all small-scale ARS (n=1476) were associated with the presence of a
boat. During small-scale ARS, birds spent more time and had greater
sinuosity during boat-associated ARS compared with other ARS that we
considered natural. For, small-scale ARS associated with boats, those
performed over shelves were longer in duration, had greater sinuosity, and
birds spent more time sitting on water compared with oceanic ARS
associated with boats. We also found that the proportion of small-scale
ARS tend to be more frequently nested in larger-scale ARS was higher for
birds associated with boats and that ARS behaviour differed between
oceanic (tuna fisheries) and shelf-edge (mainly Patagonian toothfish
fisheries) habitats. We suggest that, in seabird species attracted by
boats, a significant amount of ARS behaviours are associated with boats,
and that it is important to be able to separate ARS behaviours associated
to boats from natural searching behaviours. Our study suggest that
studying ARS characteristics should help attribute specific behaviours
associated to the presence of boats and understand associated risks
between fisheries.