Every day, 1000’s of hooks and nets meant for fish find yourself catching seabirds — a world downside that’s pushing many seabird species to the brink of extinction. But no fishing gear could do extra injury than the gillnet, which entangles and kills at least 400,000 seabirds every year.

What if all it took to save them was a pair of googly eyes?

It’s not fairly that easy, however a workforce of scientists, conservationists and engineers are growing a tool that has the potential to save many seabirds from gillnets. This system, generally known as the looming-eyes buoy, is basically a floating scarecrow.

A prototype was not too long ago examined on long-tailed geese in Küdema Bay in Estonia. The outcomes of this examine, published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, recommend that looming-eyes buoys can cut back the variety of seabirds by up to 30 % inside a 165-foot radius. Although the looming-eyes buoy received’t fully resolve the downside, it’s a step in the proper path, consultants say.

Preventing albatross, petrels, gannets, boobies and different seabirds from being caught in gillnets is just not simple. The odor of a gillnet loaded with fish can entice seabirds from miles away. And when these birds dive into the water to get what they thought was a free meal, they will turn into entangled in the gillnet and drown.

In 2018, conservationists from BirdLife International, a conservation group, started brainstorming methods to stop such occurrences.

“We thought that if we could prevent vulnerable seabirds from diving too close to the gillnets in the first place, we might be able to finally tackle bycatch significantly,” mentioned Yann Rouxel, a undertaking officer at BirdLife International and lead creator of the new examine. That’s when Mr. Rouxel and his workforce got here up with the concept for a marine scarecrow.

He and his colleagues shared their concept with scientists from the Estonian Ornithological Society and engineers from Fishtek Marine, an organization that makes fishing gear, and simply over a yr later the looming-eyes buoy was born.

Much like the scarecrows that line cornfields or the plastic owls that sit atop workplace buildings, the looming-eyes buoy deters birds via intimidation. The massive, rotating eye spots that sit atop the bobbing buoy are designed to resemble the staring eyes of a big predator.

Last yr, the researchers behind the looming-eyes buoy positioned a number of prototypes in Küdema Bay to see whether or not they might successfully deter the native long-tailed geese. After 250 hours of commentary, the workforce discovered that the presence of the bug-eyed buoys decreased the variety of long-tailed geese inside a 165-foot radius by 20 % to 30 % in contrast with conventional buoys.

“If we put ourselves in the place of the diving birds, it is not surprising that large staring eyes at the surface of the water may dissuade them from coming near, mimicking the gaze of a potential predator,” mentioned Brendan Godley, a professor of conservation science at the University of Exeter in England.

“It is an excellent example of the kind of innovation that needs to be encouraged,” mentioned Dr. Godley, who was not concerned in the examine.

The researchers additionally discovered that long-tailed geese returned to the areas that they had vacated as soon as the looming-eyes buoys had been eliminated, suggesting that the buoys’ results weren’t everlasting.

Although the prototype confirmed promise, extra analysis and improvement are wanted.

“Our previous prototype worked great, but it is currently too heavy and large to be used” in gillnet fisheries, Mr. Rouxel mentioned.

The researchers plan on testing a smaller and lighter model in the Icelandic lumpfish fishery quickly.

If profitable, these gadgets may very well be used to cut back seabird bycatch in small- and large-scale gillnet fisheries round the world. However, the looming-eyes buoy is much from a panacea to save seabirds from fishing gear. The extent of seabird bycatch might be underreported and not totally understood, and the downside received’t be solved by technical options with googly eyes alone.

“It is unlikely that a silver-bullet solution exists, though,” Mr. Rouxel mentioned, “so a toolbox of measures is probably our best option.”



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