Summary
This study was a controlled experiment within in a harbor that investigated the effectiveness of attaching small, reflective objects (8mm wide acrylic glass spheres) to standard gillnets to increase acoustic reflectivity and therefore mitigate bycatch of small, echolocating cetaceans. The study found that the spheres increased the acoustic backscattering strength and echo, which suggests that the spears would be an effective way to reduce small cetacean bycatch. Gillnets with sphere-sphere distance of 20cm performed best.