About Green LED Embedded Fishnets

2016-03-24  Post By: Longmangroup

The innovative study, carried out in Sechura Bay in northern Peru was supported by ProDelphinus, the UK Government's Darwin Initiative, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and published in Marine Ecology Progress Series. It is the first time that lighting technology has been trialled in a working fishery. At a cost of £1.40 ($2) for each LED light, the research showed that the cost of saving one turtle was £24 ($34) -- a sum which would be reduced if the method was rolled out at larger scale.

Multiple populations of sea turtle species use Peruvian coastal waters as foraging grounds including green, olive ridley and hawksbill, loggerhead and leatherback. Peru's gillnet fleet comprises the largest component of the nation's small-scale fleet and is conservatively estimated to set 100, 000 km of net per year in which thousands of turtles will die as 'bycatch' or unintentionally.

The researchers used 114 pairs of nets, each typically around 500-metres in length. In each pair, one was illuminated with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) placed every 10 meters along the gillnet floatline. The other net in the pair was the control and not illuminated. The control nets caught 125 green turtles while illuminated nets caught 62. The target catch of guitarfish was unaffected by the net illumination. They are now working with larger fisheries in Peru and with different colored lights to see if the results can be repeated and applied with more critically endangered species.

"This is very exciting because it is an example of something that can work in a small-scale fishery which for a number of reasons can be very difficult to work with. These lights are also one of very few options available for reducing turtle bycatch in nets, " said Mangel, who is one of the lead authors on the paper and ProDelphinus Research Coordinator.

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