The Solution
Starts With You
Fishing Gear Location Marking Fund
The Fishing Gear Location Marking Fund is designed to encourage research and development of innovative commercial solutions that enable the location of fixed fishing gear on the sea floor (e.g., pot and trap gear) to be discovered by gear owners, other fishermen and fisheries, law enforcement, and fishery regulators without the use of buoy lines and buoys. The Fund is dedicated to the development of interoperable solutions to gear location marking so that different manufacturers’ devices can communicate with one another. Affordable and Interoperable gear location technology is critical if fishing without buoy lines is to become a viable remedy to lethal entanglements of whales, sharks and turtles.
The Issue
Establishment of this fund is motivated by the urgent need to significantly reduce or eliminate buoy line entanglements of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and other vulnerable marine wildlife.
Contribute to the Gear Fund
To find out more on how you can contribute the Fishing Gear Location Marking Fund, click on the link below.
Apply to the Gear Fund
Do you represent a technology team with an idea for making a marketable design a reality for buoyless gear marking technology?
Partnerships
For buoyless gear to be a feasible solution, technology must be created and adopted that allows for gear location marking with low production and maintenance costs as well as interoperability with other manufacturers’ devices. Through partnerships built on the desire to help marine wildlife and those working on the water, we can make this idea a reality.