A number of the sooty shearwater's breeding grounds are protected (8); for example Snares Island, New Zealand, is a National Nature Reserve and forms part of the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands World Heritage Site (12). Efforts by conservation organisations to save albatross from dieing on longline fishing hooks will also benefit the sooty shearwater (11). Numerous devices can be used to prevent these unnecessary deaths; a study which examined the use of one such device, an integrated weight so that the longline sinks out of the bird's reach faster, revealed its effectiveness in reducing the mortality of sooty shearwaters (10).