| Debris from fisheries pose significant threats to coastal marine ecosystems worldwide. Tropical tuna purse seine fisheries contribute to this problem via the construction and deployment of thousands of human-made drifting fish aggregating devices (dFADs) annually, many of which end up beaching in coastal areas. Here, we analyzed approximately 40,000 dFAD trajectories in the Indian Ocean and 12,000 dFAD trajectories in the Atlantic Ocean deployed over the decade 2008–2017 to identify where and when beachings occur. We find that there is tremendous promise for reducing beaching events by prohibiting deployments in areas most likely to lead to a beaching. For example, our results indicate that 21% to 40% (depending on effort redistribution after closure) of... |
