The U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Commerce have passed onto Congress draft legislation to protect certain ocean birds.
The Deputy Secretary of Interior, Lynn Scarlett, says Pacific birds like the albatross and the petrel fly tens of thousands of kilometres each year.
She says these well-traveled ocean wanderers face increasing threats to their survival such as changes in food supply, pollution and marine debris and becoming incidental bycatch in longline fisheries
The draft legislation provides the Departments of the Interior and Commerce with authority to adopt and implement conservation and management measures to protect these birds.
