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The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has announced the launch of its 2011 International Smart Gear Competition to find innovative ways to reduce the amount of fisheries bycatch.

Open to anyone from fishers to backyard inventors and students, the competition is open from 1 March to 31 August 2011 (click here).

The competition aims to identify real-world fishing solutions that allow fishers to fish smarter while helping to maintain ocean health, including by reducing the bycatch of seabirds such as ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.

The 2011 International Smart Gear Competition is offering a grand prize of US$ 30 000 and two US$ 10 000 runner-up prizes.  Additionally, in partnership with the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, the competition is offering a US$ 7500 special tuna prize that will be awarded to the idea that will reduce the amount of bycatch found in tuna fisheries.

Initiated in 2004, the biennial WWF International Smart Gear Competition is taking place for the fifth time.

Click here to view the previous winners of the competition.  The 2009 grand prize was awarded for the design of an underwater-baited hook designed to reduce the mortality of seabirds (including ACAP-listed species of albatrosses and petrels).

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 March 2011