A team of scientists in France are ‘recruiting’ albatrosses to monitor fishing fleets in the ocean for illegal activity.
Smithsonian Magazine reports on the findings of a new study detailing efforts to tag the “sentinels of the sea” with tiny GPS trackers. These can detect short-range radar emissions from trawlers that may be acting suspiciously.
The team at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, chose albatrosses to carry the devices as their extraordinary range at sea often exceeds that of aircraft and even some satellites in the most remote regions — and they tend to be attracted to fishing vessels as a food source.
In one six-month study of the Indian Ocean, researchers found that more than a quarter of fishing vessels detected at sea by the birds were not trackable on AIS — suggesting illegal fishing was afoot.
Smithsonian Magazine has much more on the story HERE.