Initial Trials to Increase Acoustic Detectability of Drift Nets used in the Albacore Tuna Fishery

Summary

The drift net fishery for Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) has been criticised for its alleged by-catch of small cetaceans which include dolphins. If it is possible to make a tuna drift net acoustically very detectable to dolphins then their risk of entanglement in the net is likely to be reduced. At the request of UK fishermen's organisations, Seafish and Loughborough University conducted a joint sea trial in Cornwall to examine some of the practicalities of increasing the acoustic detectability of a tuna drift net. The work concluded that it was possible to achieve an increased acoustic detectability by means of passive reflectors attached to the net, but this was at the expense of an efficient deployment of the nets and was unacceptable to fishermen. This report has been produced from a scanned original and may therefore contain some formatting and other inaccuracies. In cases where this affects the technical content, a paper copy of the original report can still be obtained from Seafish.

Publication Reference No.

SR408

Publication date

01 September 1992