Australian Students Test Seal Avoidance Measures After Outcry over Geelong Star
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Hobart Mercury] By Bruce Mounster - August 24, 2015
University of Tasmania students are working on ways to deter seals and dolphins from swimming too close to commercial fishers’ trawl nets.
The operators of the large factory freezer trawler Geelong Star have been trying to find ways to reduce that vessel’s marine mammal bycatch, but the ideas – put forward this year by applied science students at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies Launceston campus – are initially aimed at smaller trawlers.
The students’ ideas, including noisy sirens, tingling electric currents and bright lights, were among winning entrants in a competition organised by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and the South East Trawl Fishing Industry Association.
Tommy Cheo, a marine environment student from Malaysia, won the top $500 award for a siren that generates noise as it is towed in the water.
Ben uit den Bogaard won a $350 prize for his idea to pump a mild electric current through wires woven into the net.
Tana McCarthy won $150 for battery-operated lights...
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