Victoria, Seychelles (March 22, 2012) - /ISSF News/ - A French purse seiner will carry a team of researchers and the most
advanced electronic monitoring technology when it shoves off from port in the Indian Ocean next week, the International Seafood
Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) announced today. The cruise is the latest installment in a global #BycatchProject designed to
test and experiment new technologies and techniques for reducing non-targeted catch in large-scale purse seine fisheries using
floating objects that attract fish, called FADs.
The Torre Giulia, owned by French group CFTO, will spend 6 weeks in the Indian Ocean with 3 research scientists onboard. The
team will work alongside the vessel’s crew, developing an underwater census to determine the species composition and abundance
of species under FADs, studying the natural behavior of fish around FADs, and testing techniques to attract sharks and other bycatch away from FADs.
Dr. Laurent Dagorn, a Senior Scientist at Institut de Recherche pour Le Développement (IRD) and Chair of the ISSF Bycatch Project
Steering Committee will supervise researchers Patrice Dewals (IRD), Fabien Forget (Rhodes University/SAIAB/IRD) and John Filmalter
(Rhodes University/SAIAB/IRD).
“A working purse seine vessel provides the perfect setting for studying bycatch mitigation techniques by putting ideas and theories
into practice, which will hopefully result in positive outcomes,” said Dr. Laurent Dagorn. “It is essential that we actively pass
along lessons learned to skippers, conservationists, governments, and anyone else who has influence within the fishing industry.”
This cruise is a joint scientific effort between the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) and the European-funded
project Mitigating ADverse Ecological impacts of open ocean fisheries (MADE). Lessons learned from the #BycatchProject are analyzed
by scientists and ultimately passed along to the fishing community in an ongoing series of workshops held by ISSF around the world.
The Torre Giulia will be the second purse seine tuna vessel in the world to employ an electronic video monitoring system, designed
for instances where an onboard human observer is not a practical, or safe, option, or to supplement human observers. Experts from
Archipelago Marine Research Ltd., will outfit the vessel with an array of sensors to monitor key fishing gear, and trigger the video
cameras when it detects fishing activity. An onboard control center manages the system and logs the data, along with vessel location,
speed, and heading information provided by the system’s GPS receiver. Throughout the trip, the system also delivers hourly updates via
satellite, reporting vessel position, fishing activity, and other relevant information. Once the vessel returns to port, any portion
of the logged data can be reviewed to help evaluate fishing activity.
More on the #BycatchProject...