Seabird saving invention snags top Smart Gear prize
Their invention – the underwater baited hook – allows longline vessels to set baited hooks underwater out of reach of seabirds. Designed for use on coastal tuna and swordfish vessels worldwide, the invention minimizes or eliminates accidental mortality of seabirds including albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters, which are sometimes killed in the fishing gear when they attempt to seize bait attached to longline hooks.
The grand prize winning team consists of Phil Ashworth, general manager of Australia-based Amerro Engineering and Dr. Graham Robertson, a principal research scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division. WWF and its partners made the awards announcement today at the World Fishing Exhibition in Vigo, Spain.
Ashworth and Robertson beat out more than 71 other contenders from 27 countries to win the competition’s top prize.
Every year, unselective fishing catches non-target animals as ‘bycatch’ – an issue that causes the death of hundreds of thousands of marine animals, including seabirds. A recently published study defines bycatch as unmanaged or unused catch and on this basis it is estimated that bycatch accounts for at least 40% of what is taken from our oceans each year.
“With bycatch accounting for at least 40 per cent of what is taken from our oceans each year, competitions like Smart Gear are critical opportunities to stimulate and showcase new technologies to reduce this threat,” said Dr. Robin Davies, Interim Leader of WWF’s Bycatch Initiative. “It is inspiring to see how many innovative ideas were submitted to the Smart Gear Competition because it reflects a dedicated and extremely diverse group of people who are committed to finding solutions to bycatch.”
Two other inventions to help reduce bycatch won runner-up prizes of $10,000 for their inventors. A team from Belgian’s Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO) won for their invention named Hovercran, which substantially reduces bycatch in shrimp trawls. The other runner-up is David Sterling, of Australia’s Sterling Trawl Gear Services, who developed a device called the Batwing Board, an alternative to the standard trawl door used by most trawl operators, which both reduces impact to the sea bottom by approximately 90 percent and reduces fuel consumption.
This year’s competition also features a special East African Marine prize of $7,500 which has been awarded to Samwel B. Bikkens of Kenya’s Moi University for his device known as “The Selector.”
The invention makes use of fish responses to light and water movement to address a bycatch problem in Lake Victoria, the largest lake in East Africa and an important fishery in the region. This is the second year that WWF has offered a special regional prize to encourage inventions that address issues in areas of critical concern.
“The creative inventions designed by the winners of the Smart Gear Competition promise practical, effective, everyday solutions to the problem of bycatch – a serious issue which threatens the health of our oceans,” say Michael Osmond, WWF’s senior program officer for fisheries, who directs the competition.
The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, The Marisla Foundation, the Sea World & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, the Lemelson Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are supporting this year’s Smart Gear Competition.
The International Smart Gear Competition was created by WWF and a diverse range of partners in May 2004 to bring together fishermen, fisheries, policy and science to find solutions to reduce the unnecessary decline of vulnerable species due to bycatch. The first Smart Gear Competition drew more than 50 entries from 16 countries. This year the competition drew 71 entries from 27 countries, including Peru, Uruguay, French Guiana, and the Ukraine.
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For further information:
Sarah Janicke, Species Communications Manager, [email protected], +41 79 528 8641
In Vigo: Coral García, WWF Comunicación, [email protected], +34 60 934 6838
For more information regarding bycatch and the 2009 International Smart Gear Competition:
• There are 26 species of seabirds, including 17 albatross species, threatened with extinction because of longlining, which kills more than 300,000 seabirds each year.
• As many as 250,000 endangered loggerhead turtles and critically endangered leatherback turtles are caught annually on longlines set for tuna, swordfish, and other fish.
• An estimated 89 percent of hammerhead sharks and 80 percent of thresher and white sharks have disappeared from the Northeast Atlantic Ocean in the last 20 years, largely due to bycatch.
• The International Smart Gear Competition winner is determined by a panel of judges that includes fishermen, researchers, engineers and fisheries managers from all over the world. This year’s judging panel included 12 judges from 6 countries. The competition is open to eligible entrants from any profession, including fishermen, professional gear manufacturers, teachers, students, engineers, scientists and backyard inventors, offering anyone a chance to win. Entries are judged on innovation, practicality, cost-effectiveness, their ability to reduce bycatch of any species and the overall contribution the invention makes to conservation. The next competition will be in 2011.
International Smart Gear competition: www.panda.org or www.smartgear.org.
Images and video are available for media by request.
About WWF
WWF is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with almost 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.
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