Researchers create bizarre floating gadget that could save millions of seabirds
It s a floating buoy that has big looming eyes A A
Imagine you’re a long-tailed Duck (
Clangula hyemalis). You see a small, delicious fish in the water and you dive towards it, looking for a tasty meal. But just as you catch it in your beak, you hit a wall of near-invisible netting, meeting the same fate as the fish you’re trying to eat.
Far from being a hypothetical scenario, this is a danger that many seabirds face every day because of something gillnets.
Image credit: BirdLife International
Andres Kalamees
Buoys fitted with cartoon-like eyes act in a similar way to scarecrows, keeping seabirds safely away from areas of the sea where they might get caught in fishing nets.
An estimated 400,000 diving birds drown each year when they become entangled in vertically oriented gill nets that hang down in water between floats or buoys.
In a bid to reduce deaths, a team of bird conservation researchers led by Yann Rouxel at the BirdLife International Marine Programme in Glasgow, UK, has developed and tested a method of turning the buoys into marine scarecrows.
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Researchers previously hoped that LED lighting would alert seabirds to the nearly transparent nets, but the birds got tangled up and drowned anyway, says Rouxel. Then he and his team noticed that digital, moving eyes on the screens surrounding airport runways successfully keep birds away from planes.
What does your role involve?
My role facilitates the Albatross Task Force (ATF) Project funded by the RSPB, as well as the Namibian Islands Marine Protected Area (NIMPA) project, which is funded by the Blue Marine Foundation. Under the ATF project, I am responsible for advocating the sustainability of seabird bycatch data collection in the Namibia for demersal hake longline and trawl fishery. Under the NIMPA project I am responsible for initiating and developing a collaborative Management Plan for the Namibian Islands Marine Protected Area and mobilizing resources towards its implementation by providing support to the Ministry for Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR).
Mitigation become law
The Task Force quickly set to work and started meeting with the fishing industry to show them seabird ‘mitigation measures’ like bird-scaring lines – simple lines with colourful streamers towed behind the vessel that act as ‘scarecrows’ and keep birds away from baited hooks or dangerous trawl cables. After many thousands of hours at sea and in ports building support for these measures and the importance of protecting seabirds, in 2015 the team were successful in advocating for fishery regulations requiring the use of mitigation measures by law.
These news laws meant that bird-scaring lines were widely adopted across the fleet, and the new study demonstrates just how effective the potent combination of grassroots engagement and solid regulations has been.