
Albatrosses who catch pirates on the high seas - lelf
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200708-the-albatrosses-who-catch-pirates-on-the-high-seas
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jerkstate
And a good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every
day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all
the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

'God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— Why
look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow I shot the ALBATROSS.

~~~
dreamcompiler
Had to memorize this in grade school. I'll never be able to appreciate it
properly because of that trauma.

~~~
frabert
I absolutely despised having to memorize passages in school. To this day, I
can't find a single way that has helped me.

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ISL
Sounds awesome -- hopefully there isn't an unintended consequence of
encouraging illegal fishers to shoot down albatrosses.

When you're already breaking some ethics/rules, it is much easier to break one
more.

~~~
jgeada
Illegal fishing should be treated as an act of war against the human race.
Illegal fishing boats should just be sunk.

~~~
dTal
The verve with which you enforce lethal consequences on people who break the
rules to survive, must be equally matched with a verve for helping those in
need. Many of these people aren't illegally fishing for pleasure.

~~~
brutt
Why you have locked doors in your house? Maybe it better to help those who are
looking for shelter or food instead of spending money on doors, locks,
security cams, police, courts, jails, borders, army.

~~~
rfrey
You equate locking my door at night with killing subsistence fishermen who are
breaking fishing laws to survive?

~~~
brutt
Yep. If these same fishermen will break into your country and then break into
your house, it will be a bit late to enforce law. Dozens of wars we know
started this way.

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everybodyknows
Previous coverage:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=albatrosses%20illegal&sort=byDate&type=story)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=albatrosses%20pirates&sort=byDate&type=story)

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jcun4128
Curious of the tech specifics eg. using Iridium sat or something for
communication, I think article just said "trackers". Though I see she's
wearing a backpack so maybe it was just a brief test/not far/long duration.

~~~
Exmoor
The article seemed pretty devoid of technical details and left me curious as
well. That said, this sentence might give us some insight:

"The loggers took years to perfect and I can still remember the excitement of
getting the first one back that had successfully detected a boat’s radar."

"Getting the first one back" makes me think that they physically had to
retrieve the sensor, rather than have data transmitted.

I am aware of two kinds of trackers deployed on birds. The first can note
their location via GPS at regular intervals and send that data to cell towers
when in range. I've only heard about these being deployed on larger birds such
as Peregrine Falcons [0] or Snowy Owls [1].

The second type uses daylight to gather location data. If you know when the
sun rose and set, relative to UTC, you can pinpoint your location to within
~100 miles. Trackers using this technology can be much smaller, but the bird
has to be recaptured for data to be retrieved. Trackers like this were used
within the last decade to finally uncover the location where Black Swifts who
breed in the United States spent their winter. These small birds flew all the
way to Brazil and returned the next summer to the exact same nesting location
they used in prior years. Similar trackers, which also had accelerometers,
were used to prove the Common Swifts sometimes fly non-stop all winter,
sleeping while they fly.

Given the text I quoted and the fact that albatrosses rarely come near any
sort of radio receiver, I suspect the trackers must be retrieved from birds,
likely on the breeding grounds, which would make the lag monumental. Perhaps
it's possible that they're able to do some sort of satellite transmission, but
that would seem very challenging indeed.

[0] [https://madisonaudubon.org/fff/2016/10/25/featured-
sanctuary...](https://madisonaudubon.org/fff/2016/10/25/featured-sanctuary-
bird-peregrine-falcon) (The main site appears to be down) [1]
[https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/](https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/)

~~~
jcun4128
Wow that's interesting the sunrise/sunset sensor, never considered/heard about
that. I've read about the "sleeping while flying" thing that seems crazy, I
guess if they're high enough/how long is the sleep.

Thanks for the thoughtful response

~~~
jcheng
According to this, the sleep is very short indeed, done only while gaining
altitude, and only done with one side of the brain at a time!

[https://www.audubon.org/news/scientists-finally-have-
evidenc...](https://www.audubon.org/news/scientists-finally-have-evidence-
frigatebirds-sleep-while-flying)

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stormdennis
24 puffins isn't that heavy. I think I weigh about 180 puffins.

~~~
mnw21cam
It isn't exactly an SI unit of measurement, is it?

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MaxBarraclough
Must be imperial. If _hogshead_ can be a unit of measure, why not _puffin_?

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anxtyinmgmt
Reminds me of canaries and coal mines

