Seabird saving device makes finals of European Inventor Award 2021

Around 300,000 seabirds, including endangered species of albatross, die annually as marine fishing bycatch. To mitigate the problem and make commercial fishing more targeted and sustainable, British brothers Ben and Pete Kibel, an engineer and fisheries biologist respectively, developed Hookpod, which is a small, reusable device that encapsulates baited hooks until they sink to a depth inaccessible to seabirds.

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The brothers have established three SMEs to market Hookpod and their other inventions that reduce bycatch in global fisheries.

Longline fishing is used by commercial operators to catch tuna, swordfish and other species in the open sea. It involves the use of lines that are tens of kilometres long, carrying thousands of hooks that catch large numbers of marine animals other than those targeted. This includes seabirds and conservationists are concerned about the tens of thousands of albatrosses that die this way annually. According to the International Union for Conversation of Nature, most of the 22 albatross species are listed as vulnerable, threatened or endangered.