New Device Alerts Dolphins To Fishing Nets

by Sherry Morse

The German environment ministry has decreed that a new acoustic device must be used to monitor the impact of offshore construction on dolphins and porpoises.

The device, known as the T-pod, is designed to make cetaceans switch on their sonar in order to detect fishing nets.

The T-pod, designed and manufactured by Nick Tregenza of the Cornwall Dolphin Group, has become such an in-demand item around the world that Dr. Tregenza, who assembles the devices in a spare bedroom, has had over two hundred orders for them.

According to Dr. Tregenza, "There is nothing else like my pod on the market."

The T-pod is a self-contained, submersible computer and hydrophone which recognizes and logs the echo-location clicks made by cetaceans.

The T-pod’s invention follows years of study by Cornwall Dolphin Group volunteers who traveled on fishing boats to see if cetaceans were getting accidentally caught in fishing nets and if this was contributing to their strandings and deaths.

When they determined that this was indeed the case, Dr. Tregenza developed the T-pod, which revealed that porpoises and dolphins are more likely to get caught in nets when they are not using their sonar.

The T-pod has been used in the Baltic as part of an environmental impact study involving porpoises and offshore wind farms, and in the Shetland Islands to monitor the behavior of dolphins and porpoises around tidal power generators.

The device has also been used to track bottlenose dolphins in the Mediterranean and river dolphins in the Amazon.

© 2003 Animal News Center, Inc.