The glow sticks used to lighten up raves and Halloween are also used to attract fish to hooks on miles-long lines. But, unfortunately these glow sticks seem to appear irresistible also to the sea reptiles – the turtles, leading to reducing their population accidentally. This accidental reduce in the number of turtles falling prey to fish-lures is found by a new study.
Considerably, in 2000 alone, an estimated 200,000 loggerhead turtles and 50,000 leatherbacks fell victim to longlines, the report says. It is increasing raising concerns especially because both the species are endangered, as been listed with the World Conservation Union.
True, to prevent this from happening, stopping the use of glow sticks in fishing is the easy and quick solution. But, then what is the alternative?
But, the researchers have found a simple solution, but a better one – it is by just changing the type of light sticks. This would help the turtles from getting accidentally fall victim to commercial long-line fishing operations, contributing to the decline of the turtle population.
This is for the first time; it has been revealed that sea turtles are attracted to the swordfish and tuna-luring lights used by commercial longliners. The paper appears in this month’s issue of the journal Animal Conservation.
Study co-author John Wang of the University of Hawaii said,
Once the turtles are in the vicinity of the longlines, there’s a high chance they will bite on the bait and become snagged. They can also get entangled in the fishing lines.
Photo Credit: eurocbc.org