| Since the early 1990s, drifting Fish Aggregating Devices, or FADs, have rapidly become the dominant type of floating object used by the purse seine fishery in the Eastern Pacific Ocean to capture tunas. The development of this fishery for larger vessels is described using data collected by observers aboard vessels of more than 363 metric tons fish-carrying capacity. Bamboo rafts, equipped with radio-transmitters that allow for semi-continuous monitoring, are typically used as FADs. Old purse seine netting is often suspended below the bamboo raft to give the FAD an enhanced underwater profile. Similar to the fishery on flotsam between 1992-1998, most sets on FADs were made before 8 am, with skipjack and bigeye being the dominant tuna species caught, and... |
