Seabird, Seabird Fly Home
The incredible Looming Eyes Buoy also known as the ‘Wall-E’ Scarecrow is saving seabirds from becoming bycatch in fishing nets with some amazing technology and a big old pair of googly-eyes.
Oh hey there…you planning to eat that last bite of sandwich? No pressure, I’ll just walk around you staring at it but, no pressure! Really! For us seabirds, catching fish is hard and I’m kind of just hoping you’ll throw me a bone here…or your crust. Sacredtothewood here flying you over the ocean to see a super simple and actually quite hilarious looking invention that’s saving our essential sea bird friends.
I decided to keep my ocean theme going because it’s so big and so important and we’re doing so much to harm the ocean’s ecosystem. It’s crazy to think that, with the ocean being so, so huge and filled with so much life, one species is actually causing a significant amount of damage. That might be the mentality of quite a lot of people. The ocean is so huge, how could we ever actually make any impact at all. With our global population about to reach 8 billion and the rising consumption of fish, the ocean is hurting, which makes complete sense. The ocean is a complex and diverse system of symbiotic relationships far too evolved for us to even begin to understand. If we cause even one species to go extinct, it triggers a not so great chain of decay. The ocean is filled with forms of life so old and so wise that even your Harvard educated great uncle is taking notes. Our big blue is like the ultimate earth grandpa! And honey…grandpa needs some help standing up.
A horrible product of fishing is bycatch. This happens in small scale fishing and large scale fishing so it’s hard to regulate. If hard core net restrictions went in place globally, it wouldn’t just affect the big mammas. It would deeply harm smaller communities around the world that rely on fishing for food or their economy. You’d think this would mean higher regulation for large scale operations that cause most of the damage and lower regulation for smaller operations that cause barely any damage to the overall health of the ocean, but unfortunately people love their fish and sea life and it just makes too much gosh darn money for real changes to be made. The interesting part is that their are technically regulations…people just don’t follow them. That’s some black market voo doo stuff that I can get into another time. However, right here, right now, I want to focus on a specific bycatch problem, and especially a recent solution to that problem, that has definitely caught my eye😅…oh man I crack myself up!
Like the Alessi Brothers so sweetly sing, “seabird, seabird, fly home”, we want our very important seabirds to be able to fly home after going out to catch fish. This isn’t the case for the over 400,000 seabirds that die as bycatch in gillnets every year. In keeping with my good news intentions I’m going to blast yah with the good news. Please read up on Sea Birds because they are very cool and essential to the ecosystem, much like every creature. Nature is a ton of chains linked together and if you remove one, the whole thing gets massively affected. This fact pushes scientists and nature lovers all over the world to find new and innovative ways to work in tandem with our changing practices to sustain the health, lifestyle and population of any species in danger. If we cause the problems, it only makes sense that we find ways to fix them.
After getting bird mom worried about my sea bird friends I was elated to find out that scientists from BirdLife International and the Estonian Ornithological Society have been working for a long time to find a long term solution to sea bird bycatch and got amazing results after testing out a cool device that keeps sea birds from landing and diving near netted areas. This fascinating invention is nothing short of an adorable googly-eyed booey that bobs and tilts on top of the water using bright eye spots and movement to take advantage of natural aversion to the flashing of the reflection of the sun. They, as well, very intentionally look like giant eyes to make the birds go “huh, what is that? Better not risk it.” After testing little water Wall-E and observing for over 250 hours, the team found LEB devices could reduce long-tailed ducks congregating between 20–30%, compared with traditional fishing buoys.
Still in it’s prototype and being perfected all the time, the Looming Eyes Bouy is on it’s way to Mother Teresa status saving so many valuable beings. This wonderful pair of googlys is bringing me all kinds of smiles and hope and love for human beings. People are out there dedicating their lives to helping combat the negative outcome of so many of our industrial, agricultural and lifestyle practices. If you want to help these amazing birds out, make positive consumer choices and support those out there helping the world. In this modern day, there are tons of ways people in all kinds of circumstances can help the world. Even if it’s telling your friends to read this blog, that’s helping bring more awareness and open eyes are bright eyes, just ask LEB 😉
Stay safe, be healthy, and love yourself and the people around you with everything you’ve got!
