Sunday, March 27, 2016

Green light for turtles

Seems too easy; just put little green lights on gill nets, and there is a significant decrease in the sea turtle bycatch. Sometimes simple is best.

Green light stops sea turtle deaths 

"Dr Jeffrey Mangel, a Darwin Initiative research fellow based in Peru, and Professor Brendan Godley, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University's Penryn Campus, were part of a team of researchers who found that attaching green battery powered light-emitting diodes (LED) to gillnets used by a small-scale fishery reduced the number of green turtle deaths by 64 per cent, without reducing the intended catch of fish."

Each light only cost around two dollars. So this shows the truth of the saying, "Sometimes you have to spend a little to save a lot" -- in this case, a lot of sea turtles.

Reference: Reducing green turtle bycatch in small-scale fisheries using illuminated gillnets: the cost of saving a sea turtle by N. Ortiz, J.C. Mangel, J. Wang, J. Alfaro-Shigueto, S. Pingo, A. Jimenez, T. Suarez, Y. Swimmer, F. Carvalho and B. J. Godley is published in Marine Ecology Progress Series Vol. 545, pages 251-259.


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