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by Pick-A-Hill2019 1691 days ago
One of the criticisms of this device as per the article is that the critics feel that it might entrap marine life. That sounds like a reasonable criticism and is one that is refuted by the inventor saying that the ‘net’ is towed at low enough speeds and it also has various lights, escape paths etc. as mitigations but nobody seems to say either “it was zero caught so pffft to that criticism” or “yes a small amount were caught up but was it a small enough number that the benefits to species x,y,z outweigh the small amount of accidental damage” or (from the critics) “it was a fish massacre”.

I appreciate there might be technical reasons why the inventor is unable to determine the exact quantity (if any) however the absence of any quantities being mentioned at all is puzzling and either a missed opportunity to ‘slay the nay-sayers’ or is something they would rather not mention.

In fairness there may be an exact figure available somewhere out there but wasn’t something a quick dig through the first few pages of search results revealed.

1 comments

If you compare to wind turbines, the scale of the potential harm is small enough that it takes proper scientific investigation to say whether it is a problem, and whether any particular attempt to improve things is helping.

Easy enough to make claims, but they're worthless without the science to back them up.