A team of inventors from the US state of Rhode Island has won the fourth annual WWF International Smart Gear Competition for an invention that could save fish and other marine life from dying or being discarded each year.
This year’s winning solution, the "Eliminator”, is an innovative device that captures haddock while reducing the accidental netting, or bycatch, of other marine species. The invention takes advantage of the haddock’s natural tendency to swim upwards, not downwards, which is the norm for other fish.
The winning team consists of New England fishermen James O’Grady, Philip Ruhle Sr and his son Philip Ruhle Jr, Jonathan Knight of Superior Trawl in Wakefield, RI, and fisheries extension specialists Laura Skrobe and David Beutel.
“The collaborative design and development of the Eliminator trawl is a great example of industry and scientists working together with managers to develop innovative solutions to reduce or eliminate bycatch,” said David Beutel, one of the winning inventors at the University of Rhode Island.
“We’re excited to be receiving this award and look forward to continuing to research effective ways of reducing bycatch in fishing.”
The team will receive a grand prize of US$30,000. Two other inventors won runner-up prizes of $10,000 each for their inventions to help reduce bycatch.
Diego Gonzalez Zevallos, a marine biologist at the Centro Nacional Patagónico in Argentina, studied the accidental death of seabirds as they dive for food and are struck by trawling cables and dragged under the water and drown. His device, a simple plastic cone is likely to dramatically reduce seabird deaths, while not affecting the profitability for fishermen.
The other runner-up prize winner, Glen Parsons, a biology professor at the University of Mississippi, created a cylinder device that was widely tested on red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Destructive fishing is devastating our oceans, wasting a valuable natural resource and causing dramatic declines in populations of many marine species,” said Dr Simon Cripps, Director of WWF’s Global Marine Programme.
“This competition is part of an unprecedented effort to team up with fishermen, industry insiders and scientists to find the best real-world, cost-effective ideas to solve the scourge of bycatch.”
A special $5,000 prize was also awarded to UK-based Andy Smerdon of Aquatec Group Ltd. of Hampshire, England, for a device called the Passive Porpoise Deterrent. The winning design, which draws on the mammal’s echolocation system alerts porpoises to the presence of fishing nets so they can swim away and avoid them.
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 70 entries from 22 countries, including Cameroon, Finland, Thailand, Ireland, New Zealand, Russia, Kenya and Malaysia
