The World Wildlife Fund on Thursday announced that Australian inventors Phil Ashworth and Dr. Graham Robertson won the USD 30,000 (EUR 20,379) grand prize in WWF’s International Smart Gear Competition for their underwater baited hook.
Ashworth, general manager of Amerro Engineering, and Robertson, principal research scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division, beat out more than 71 other contestants from 27 countries.
Their invention allows longline vessels to set baited hooks underwater out of reach of seabirds, which could annually save thousands of seabirds from dying accidentally.
Two other bycatch-minimizing inventions won the USD 10,000 (EUR 6,793) runner-up prizes. A team from Belgian’s Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research won for its Hovercran, which reduces bycatch in shrimp trawls.
The other runner-up was David Sterling of Australia’s Sterling Trawl Gear Services, who developed a device called the Batwing Board, an alternative to the standard trawl door used by most operators that reduces fuel consumption and the impact on the sea floor.
This year’s competition also featured a special East African Marine prize of USD 7,500 (EUR 5,095), which was awarded to Samwel B. Bikkens of Kenya’s Moi University for his device, called “The Selector.” His invention uses fish responses to light and water movement to address a bycatch problem in Lake Victoria. This is the second year that WWF has offered a special regional prize to encourage inventions that address issues in areas of critical concern.
”With bycatch accounting for at least 40 percent of what is taken from our oceans each year, competitions like Smart Gear are critical opportunities to stimulate and showcase new technologies to reduce this threat,” said Dr. Robin Davies, interim leader of WWF’s Bycatch Initiative. “It is inspiring to see how many innovative ideas were submitted to the Smart Gear Competition because it reflects a dedicated and extremely diverse group of people who are committed to finding solutions to bycatch.”
