AquaCulture Shield

Aqua culture has realized an enormous growth during the last decades. It is seen as the most important alternative for traditional fisheries by international key organisations. But aqua cultures has also it downsides: the farming locations of fish and shellfish attract predators like dolphins, sea ducks and pinnipeds like seals and sea lions. Aqua culturists estimate a loss up to 10 % of their gross production owing to marine mammal predation. It is difficult to blame fish farmers for attempting to dissuade the marine mammals from taking the fish that are been grown at great expenses. Methods of dissuasion mainly consist of anti – predatory nets or other enclosures around the farm, noise polluting devices that intent to chase away potential predators and lethal methods which purpose is to eliminate all “guilty” animals around the fish farms. The later is usually illegal and is largely under-reported worldwide. This form of interaction is detrimental to both parties. First because, the responsible marine mammals eat, damage and stress the farmed animals thus causing an unknown impact on fish survivability and reproduction. Plus, it increases fish susceptibility to disease and decrease of growth due to stress. Finally, they destroy gears and also can cause massive release (through torn pens) of farmed individuals in the wild, thus affecting the local native population and genetic fitness/diversity. The AquaCulture Shield by SaveWave BV is a solution that aims at keeping predators at safe distance from for instance salmon and mussel farms. The way of producing natural and unnatural sounds under water by using a “4 quarter amplifier” is completely innovative and is expected to be the solution for habituation and noise pollution. Combined with a new innovative transducer, the AquaCulture Shield will be an enormous boost for the world wide aquaculture, which must focus on sustainability the upcoming decades.