May 17, 2021
To prevent seabirds from being caught in fishing nets, conservationists have developed an unusual aquatic scarecrow which the GNN staff summarily agreed looked just like Pixar’s WALL-E.
Copyright Andres Kalamees, Estonian Ornithological Society
Invented as part of a multinational effort to create innovative solutions to prevent seabird bycatch, a pair of googly-eyes mounted on a floating buoy was found to decrease the numbers of long-tailed ducks loitering around gillnets in Estonian waters by 25%.
Fishing bycatch, defined as the capture of non-intended animals in fishing nets and lines, accounts for the deaths of 400,000 birds worldwide every year, something which conservationists are targeting as a preventable tragedy with different kinds of deterrents.