Illuminating fishing nets may reduce by-catch

SMALL-SCALELED fisheries supply many people with food. Almost all of those who ply them rely on gillnets to trap their prey. But gillnets trap other things, besides: endangered animals such as turtles; dangerous ones, such as Humboldt squid; and ones that are both endangered and dangerous, such as several types of shark. Everyone involved would be better off if this did not happen.Building on studies done both by himself and by others, to try to avoid the accidental netting of turtles, Jesse Senko, a marine-conservation biologist at Arizona State University, has been investigating the idea of fitting light-emitting diodes (s) to nets to ward off other unwanted by-catch without discouraging target animals from entangling themselves. And, as he reports in , it seems to work.