Action

Action Synopsis: Bird Conservation About Actions

Use acoustic alerts on gillnets to reduce seabird bycatch

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    44%
  • Certainty
    21%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

A repeated, randomised and controlled trial in the USA found that sonic alerts reduced the number of common guillemots Uria aalge but not rhinoceros auklets Cerorhinca monocerata caught in gillnets.

 

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A repeated, randomised and controlled trial in a drift gillnet fishery in North Puget Sound, Washington, USA, in July and August 1996 (Melvin et al. 1999), found that nets fitted with acoustic alerts (‘pingers’) caught significantly fewer common guillemots (common murres) Uria aalge than control nets (0.31 vs. 0.60 entanglements/net). There was no significant change in the number of rhinoceros auklets Cerorhinca monocerata caught. A total of eight boats and 321 net sets were studied.

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Williams, D.R., Child, M.F., Dicks, L.V., Ockendon, N., Pople, R.G., Showler, D.A., Walsh, J.C., zu Ermgassen, E.K.H.J. & Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Bird Conservation. Pages 137-281 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

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Bird Conservation

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Bird Conservation
What Works 2021 cover

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What Works in Conservation provides expert assessments of the effectiveness of actions, based on summarised evidence, in synopses. Subjects covered so far include amphibians, birds, mammals, forests, peatland and control of freshwater invasive species. More are in progress.

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