• Each hunter is allowed to shoot or catch 50 birds per day, but the entire bag must be used for human consumption.
• All shooting from speedboats, aircraft, and motor vehicles is prohibited.
• Catching flightless common eiders, king eiders, and oldsquaws (Clangula hyemalis) is prohibited.
• Practically all seabirds and shorebirds can be shot; all other birds (except rock ptarmigan and raven) are totally protected.
The principles of this radical new act must be taught to the population by all possible means of communication, including radio, public meetings, schools, etc.
Another matter of great concern to seabirds in Greenland is the Atlantic salmon fishery off the west coast by Danish, Greenlandic and foreign fishermen. It is well known that many birds are killed in the fishing gear, and a serious political controversy has arisen, especially between the governments of the United States and Denmark. The fact that a large number of thick-billed murres were drowned in salmon gill nets during their southward swimming migration along the Greenland coast was significant. In a resolution sent by the XV World Conference of the International Council for Bird Preservation in Texel to the Danish Government, it was stated that the annual incidental drowning of murres probably involved about 250,000 individuals—a figure exceeding the reproductive capacity of the species. This estimate was doubted by Danish fishery biologists, but recent investigations carried out by the Canadian Wildlife Service and the Fisheries Research Board of Canada have shown that the figure is even greater, and that the total kill amounts to about half a million murres annually (Tull et al. 1972).
Because of this mortality of murres, an agreement was reached between the American and Danish governments, namely that:
From 1 January 1976, all salmon fisheries outside the 12-mile boundary shall totally stop. In the years 1972-75 the fishery carried out by Danish and Faroese fishermen shall be reduced gradually from 800 to 300 tons of fish, and shall terminate on 31 December 1975. The fish quota by Greenland fishermen must amount to no more than 1,100 tons annually, but from 1976 onwards, the fishery shall be restricted to areas within the 12-mile limit.
This agreement, which has drastically reduced the number of murres caught, was discussed at a meeting of the International Committee of North Atlantic Fisheries in May 1972, and was ratified by the countries involved in July 1972.