Simple gear cut seabird bycatch on Cornish fishing boats

A two-year trial with Cornish fishers found that simple visual deterrents reduced the chance of catching diving seabirds in nets. The Guardian reported the results, published in Conservation Letters, from work by the University of Exeter with Fishtek Marine. Cameras on the boats recorded what happened. A looming-eyes buoy cut the chance of a catch by 59 percent. Bird-shaped kites cut it by 71 percent. Lead author Tom Horton and Yann Rouxel, the RSPB's bycatch programme manager, described the trial. Ten Cornish fishers took part. Most bycatch off Cornwall happens in winter.

The paper's wider context is an estimate of about 95,000 diving birds, including razorbills and guillemots, caught in nets off European coasts each year. The measured result is the drop in catch chance on these boats when the buoys or kites were in use. It is not a count of birds saved across the fishery, and the Guardian does not name a single harbor as the base of the trial.