Kazuhiro Yamazaki, a captain on a Japanese tuna vessel, is the 2011 Smart Gear winner (Photo: WWF)

WWF Announces 2011 International Smart Gear Competition Winners

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced three fishing devices to save lives of seabirds, fish, turtles, and other marine life, as the winners of the 2011 International Smart Gear Competition in Seattle, Washington.

The biennial Smart Gear competition seeks innovative, environmentally-friendly ways to reduce the amount of fisheries bycatch – a problem that causes the death of hundreds of thousands of marine animals, including seabirds. This unmanaged or unused catch is estimated to account for at least 40 percent of what is taken from our oceans each year.

Mr Kazuhiro Yamazaki's design is a simple and cost-effective device and is proving to solve the seabird bycatch problem in tuna fisheries

This year’s USD 30,000 grand prize was awarded to Kazuhiro Yamazaki, a captain on a Japanese tuna vessel who also received a special tuna prize of USD 7,500, offered by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), for the idea that would reduce the amount of bycatch occurring in tuna fisheries – one of WWF’s top global fisheries conservation priorities. The 2011 International Smart Gear Competition also offered two USD 10,000 runner-up prizes.

Bill Fox, WWF Vice President for Fisheries

Mr. Yamazaki’s winning design – a double-weight branch line – sinks long line hooks beyond the range of seabirds, such as albatrosses and petrels, and it reduces injuries and fatalities to crews caused by rapidly recoiling weights and hooks. In 2010, over 95,000 branch lines with the double weight system were hauled with no injuries, reducing seabird bycatch by 89 percent as compared to un-weighted branch lines, with no effect on fish catch rates.

“Smart Gear represents a unique collaboration among conservationists, fishermen, and scientists to develop innovative devices that enable fishermen to fish more sustainably. The creative inventions designed by the winners of the Smart Gear competition promise practical, effective, everyday solutions to the problem of bycatch, which threatens the health of our oceans,” said Bill Fox, World Wildlife Fund’s U.S. Vice President for Fisheries.

Susan Jackson, President ISSF

“Bycatch harms endangered and threatened species, contributes to overfishing, damages ecosystems, and is a problem everyone wants to solve,” said John Stein, Ph.D., Acting Science Director for NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “NOAA is an enthusiastic partner in this competition, which values the expertise of fishermen, who test fishing gear more than anyone and know firsthand how bycatch threatens the sustainability of marine resources and of their own industry.”

The first runner-up prize winner was a device called the SeaQualizer, which was submitted by a team from Florida.

The SeaQualizer represents a breakthrough in bycatch release technology that could have a major impact on the management of recreational fishery mortality

The SeaQualizer is a simple device that increases the survival rate of fish that experience barotrauma symptoms. When pulled to the surface, many fish undergo an expansion of their air bladder, and cannot return safely to the ocean depths. The SeaQualizer represents a breakthrough in bycatch release technology that could have a major impact on recreational fishing mortality. Studies have suggested that survival rates greater than 50 percent are possible, depending on the species and the depth from which they are raised. If widely accepted by the recreational fishing community, the SeaQualizer could result in significant improvements in management and stock levels for red snapper and rockfish in particular.

Lights attached to the nets create enough of a warning to alert sea turtles to a barrier

The second runner-up was awarded to a team from Ocean Discovery Institute in San Diego and University of Hawaii for a device called Turtle Lights for Gillnets, which is designed to reduce the bycatch of sea turtles in gill nets. Turtle Lights for Gillnets uses widely available fishing lights to illuminate gillnets. Trials reduced green turtle interactions by 60 percent without affecting target catch rates or catch value. The award-winning team hypothesizes that the illumination creates enough of a visual cue to alert sea turtles to the presence of a net so that they can avoid it.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Fondation Segré, ISSF, Sea World and Busch Gardens Conservation Fund sponsored this year’s Smart Gear Competition.

The Smart Gear Competition is intended to inspire people to seek creative new ways to solve bycatch problems

The International Smart Gear Competition was created by World Wildlife Fund and a diverse range of partners in May 2004 to bring together fishermen, fisheries, policy and science to find solutions to reduce the unnecessary decline of vulnerable species due to bycatch.

Winner's factsheets:
2011 Winner: Yamazaki Double-Weight Branchline
2011 Runner-up: The SeaQualizer
2011 Runner-up: Turtle Lights for Gillnets

About World Wildlife Fund -WWF

World Wildlife Fund is the world’s leading conservation organization, working in 100 countries for nearly half a century.

With the support of almost 5 million members worldwide, WWF is dedicated to delivering science-based solutions to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth, halt the degradation of the environment and combat climate change.

Source: WWF

Margaret E.L. Stacey
Editor Companies and Products
editorial@seafood.media
www.seafood.media

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