So far on this tour we’ve done a lot of work to highlight the destructiveness of fish aggregating devices (or FADs) – and we’ve even confiscated a few as well, as there was a 2-month ban on their use in the high seas that evidently did not stop many commercial fishing vessels from using them. There’s a pile of five of these things on our deck. One member of the crew described them to me as looking like giant, rusty crayons, but they’re nothing nearly as benign as that.
The use of FADs results in the bycatch of many juvenile tuna and other species like sharks, turtles, and reef fish, contributing to the depletion of fish stocks and threatening vulnerable marine life.
To really show the diversity of marine life being threatened by FADs, our divers captured some footage and we’ve put together this short video:
