Tuna fishermen in the Maldives seek the help of nature’s best fish finder as the International Pole & Line Foundation and Furuno USA partner on trial of bird-tracking radar technology. It’s a well-known fact that if you want to catch fish you need to know how to find them, and in order to find fish, you need look no further than seabirds the undisputed masters of fish finding. While radar is predominantly used for navigation and collision avoidance, with the right equipment and knowledge it can also be used to locate flocks of seabirds on the distant horizon. There is nothing new about bird-spotting radars that have been in use with the purse seine fleet since the the first bird radars were developed and made available by Furuno in 1986, but this technology has not before been widely used by other tuna catchers such as pole-and-fleets. An extensive trial started on board Maldivian pole-and-line vessel Julie, which sails with a crew of fifteen, using bird-tracking radar technology that spots the birds that are preying on surface feed fish species. This provides fishermen with a good indication that tuna may be feeding on the same feed fish from below the surface. Exploring the potential opportunities for such equipment in one-by-one tuna fisheries, the International Pole & Line Foundation (IPNLF) has teamed up with Furuno USA for the three-month trial programme on board Julie. As well as providing all the equipment for the trial, Furuno USA has provided all the necessary training and advice needed to locate seabirds via radar. Ibrahim Nadheeh an IPNLF Data Acquisition Officer based in the Maldives, is accompanying Julie’s crew during the trial to gather data to establish, among other things, whether the bird-tracking radar makes a significant difference to tuna catch rates and fishing efficiency. The trial is the latest project to come out of the longstanding memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreement between IPNLF and the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture (MoFA) in the Maldives.
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