February
6, 2019
Between
2002 and 2015, these 'streamer lines' helped reduce seabird by-catch in Alaskan
fisheries by 78%..
It sounds
like the most miserable of deaths. A seabird sees a buffet of bait beneath the
water, and takes a dive to feast, only to get caught in a fishing boat longline
and dragged underneath to drown. As Nature reports
of Alaska's rare albatross and other birds who meet this awful fate,
"Every year, hundreds of thousands are accidentally hooked and dragged to
the depths of the ocean, where they drown.'
It's
obviously a terrible thing for the birds, and it's not great for the fisherman
either. WWF found
that Russia’s largest longline operation was losing nearly $800,000 a year in
lost bait and catch as a result of diving birds.
But
there's a brilliant (and cheap) fix: Streamer lines. Like scarecrows of the
sea, Smithsonian reports
that the idea came from a fisherman in Japan, who found that by "flanking
the end of his fishing vessel with streamer lines the birds shied away from his
wake."
Nature
explains that in Alaska, Ed Melvin, the Marine Fisheries Senior Scientist
for Washington
Sea Grant,and his colleagues used bright orange plastic tubes above
the water to keep the birds away, to tremendous success. Between the years 2002
and 2015, this simple trick has helped to reduce seabird by-catch in Alaskan
fisheries by a significant 78 percent.
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