Acoustic Discrimination - Technology to Support Selective Fishing

Purse-seine vessels, which catch 66% of the world´s tuna, rely largely on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) to capture tropical tuna species. In partnership with purse-seine fleets and AZTI research institute, ISSF researchers are studying how vessels that use FADs may be able to fish more selectively by applying acoustic technology like echosounders in new ways.

Echosounders can be used to identify the acoustic signatures of different tuna species, allowing FAD fishers before they make a set to better target the tuna species whose stocks are at healthy levels - reducing overfishing and bycatch of non-target tuna and other marine species.