Design of ecological FADs

Citation
Franco J, Dagorn L, Sancristobal I, Moreno G (2009) Design of ecological FADs. IOTC
Abstract

Purse seiners deploy thousands of Drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (DFADs) in all tropical oceans to catch tropical tunas. Although different designs of DFADs exist, fishers all over the world mainly use bamboo rafts with black netting hanging underneath. However, this type of FADs is responsible for incidental mortality of sea turtles and sharks through entanglement. It is now urgent that fishers use "Ecological FADs" that reduce such ghost fishing in order to move towards sustainable and responsible purse seine fisheries. In this study, we first identify the criteria for Ecological FADs and we propose various possible designs for Ecological FADs.