Report of the Joint OSPAR/HELCOM/ICES Working Group on Marine Birds (JWGBIRD)

Hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute, the Joint ICES/OSPAR/HELCOM Working Group on Seabirds met in Ostende, Belgium, 1–5 October 2018. The meeting was co-chaired by Morten Frederiksen, Ian Mitchell and Volker Dierschke, and was attended by 15 members representing 11 countries. Following the tradition of the preceding meetings, the objectives of the meeting were to develop and implement indicators for seabirds under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), as well as to review and discuss seabird-related issues relevant for human uses of the sea. The meeting consisted of a series of interconnected workshops, where subgroups with floating membership discussed Terms of Reference. Report chapters were drafted by Term of Reference leads and collated by the chairs.