Electrical pulses could keep sharks out of fishing nets

Marine scientists have designed a piece of technology that could drastically reduce shark bycatch by emitting short electrical pulses as a deterrent. The small battery-powered device, known as SharkGuard, reduced the numbers of blue sharks accidentally caught by commercial fishing gear in a French longline tuna fishery in the Mediterranean by 91% and stingrays by 71%, according to a study in the journal Current Biology. Every year an estimated 100 million sharks, skates and rays are killed by fishing and bycatch.