Cornish fishers cut seabird deaths with ‘scarecrow’ buoys

Bird-shaped kites and a floating scarecrow are being tested as a way to stop endangered seabirds drowning in fishing nets. An estimated 95,000 diving birds, including razorbills and guillemots, are caught by accident in nets off European coasts every year. Simple deterrents tested by Cornish fishers, and devised by scientists and the RSPB, have been shown to cut that toll by about two-thirds.

The scarecrow is a looming-eyes buoy with a spinning head and two large eyes that frighten diving birds away from gillnets, the walls of netting that hang vertically under the surface. It was tested alongside a commercially available kite shaped like a bird of prey. Ten Cornish fishers and Fishtek Marine, the company that made the buoy, fitted cameras to boats to record how the devices changed seabird behaviour.

The two-year trial was analysed by scientists at the University of Exeter and published in the journal Conservation Letters. The chance of seabirds being caught in gillnets fell by 59% with the buoys and by 71% with the kites. The study also found that in Cornwall most seabirds are caught in winter, which will help fishers use the devices at the right time of year.

Tom Horton, who led the Exeter research, said the study gives some of the strongest evidence so far that simple, practical deterrents can substantially reduce seabird deaths.