The new cordless fishing gear exterior theguardian
In July 2022, a test of a new cordless fishing gear off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, turned a dream of biologist Michael Moore for more than 40 years into reality. Moore, director of the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole Institute of Oceanography in the United States, was very satisfied with the new cordless fishing gear tested and explained to reporters how it works.
The new cordless gear was developed by Jasco Applied Sciences and installed in St. John's Port. John's harbour) outside the crab and lobster catcher cage. The test was initiated in collaboration with the Yasco Marine Mammal Education learning technology association, a Washington-based nonprofit, and the commercial fishing unit of the Miapwpukek First Nations.
The new cordless gear is fitted with a pop-up buoy that does not surface when it is put into the sea by fishermen, but stays in the water with the cage. The next day, when fishermen come to collect the cages, the equipment on the fishing boat sends a special sound signal, and when the pop-up buoy receives a sound signal from the fishing boat, the buoy rises. Buoys drag out ropes as they ascend, and fishermen can use these ropes to catch and recycle their cages.
The working principle of ropeless fishing gear is ropeless.org
Technologies for new cordless gear are still being developed, including a system for acoustically identifying seabed cages and marking traps with "virtual buoys" on fishermen's nautical plotters, eliminating the need for surface buoys. Fishermen also often use custom hooks at the ends of ropes to hold fishing lines between traps and facilitate dragging buoy lines to the surface if they are lost.
These fishing lines occasionally wrap around the body, tail, flippers and mouth of the endangered marine life right whale. They prevent whales from swimming and eating. Humpback whales, minke whales and leatherback turtles, which are also protected by the federal government, are also entangled, and the traditional lobster and snow crab fishing industry has been repeatedly protested by environmentalists and restricted by the government to fishing areas and fishing hours.
The application of cordless fishing techniques could avoid the hassle of dramatically changing some of North America's most valuable fisheries, with environmental groups initially estimating that U.S. fishermen lost $670 million worth of lobsters worth of fishing quotas between 2019 and 2020 to protect whales. Canadian fishermen lost $1.3 billion worth of lobsters and $590 million worth of snow crabs.
Just as no fishermen want to hurt whales, researchers and environmentalists don't want fishermen to lose their jobs and go bankrupt. They argue that as cordless fishing techniques are further refined and costs are reduced to what fishermen can afford and use safely, they provide a real opportunity for whales and the fishing industry to coexist.
As technology matures, the price of cordless gear will fall with theguardian
Getting fishermen to use the new ropeless gear is not an easy task, and Moore's team has been hoping that experienced fishermen will use their ropeless gear and suggest improvements, but some fishermen are discouraged. Fortunately, government support can help fishermen accelerate their transformation. In Canada, the federal government of Canada and the government of New Brunswick recently encouraged fishermen who fish for snow crabs in Canada to test two newly designed cordless crab traps with $2 million.
In the long run, relatively expensive rowless gear can save fishermen the cost of fishing. For example, on April 15, 2019, the dergnes crab fishermen in California ended their crab season three months early, ending a lawsuit over whales entangled in fishing gear, causing the loss of their crab catches. Under the agreement, fishermen using cordless gear that is harmless to whales will not be subject to early end of the fishing season in the future.
Traditional fishing gear is a danger to whales CBC
The new cordless gear technology is also being tested in the United States. Some of the tests involved an organization called the Rope Consortium, of which Moore was a member.
Broken fishing equipment was dragged out of the water at CBC
Mooredu said the current cost of cordless equipment for the largest user fishermen is an obstacle to its widespread use, but the advantage is that the ropeless cage can be used all year round, while the traditional cage is usually limited to only one fishing season. However, due to various reasons, many fishermen are not very motivated to use this technology.
Still, he thinks the technology is very promising. "I believe that in the near future, the now widely used traditional cage fishing for Canadian lobster or snow crab will be phased out, leaving only a small group of fishermen to perform the nature of the catch.
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This article is reprinted from The Guardian!