LIMA, June 6 (UPI) -- A modern satellite geo-positioning system revealed the movements of Peruvian fishermen are similar to those used by natural predators.
Peru maintains the world's largest, single-species fishery -- that nation's anchovy fishing fleet. For safety and monitoring purposes, the government requires each boat in the 809-vessel fleet to be equipped with satellite geo-positioning transmitters to make sure industrial-scale fishing does not occur within 5 nautical miles of the coast. The satellite device gives the real-time position of each vessel to within about 325 feet.
Peruvian scientists used that information to study the interactions between fish and fishermen. The study's results showed that in their search for fish concentrations, the fishermen adopted movement strategies similar to those described for natural predators, such as albatross or seals.
Attributes considered as characteristically human -- such as use of detection and communication technologies -- didn't produce a prey search strategy radically different from that of animal predators.
Researchers said their findings could change the general perception of human activity in marine ecosystems.
The newly developed type of analysis is being developed for application to European fisheries and has been described in the Journal of Marine Science.
