A floating buoy topped with a moving, eye-like marker reduced the chance of guillemots and razorbills being caught in gillnets by 59% in a two-year trial off Cornwall. A bird-of-prey kite reduced it by 71% in the same trial. The results suggest a practical way to deter diving seabirds from fishing nets—but they do not show that eyespots or scarecrows work everywhere.
What is the floating scarecrow?
The “floating scarecrow” is a Looming Eye Buoy (LEB): a buoy attached to existing fishing equipment and topped with a moving, eye-like marker. Its spinning or looming motion is intended to deter diving seabirds from approaching gillnets. Planning Inspectorate documents describe the device as operating without added lights or sound. It is specialized fisheries equipment, not an ordinary garden bird scarer.
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Gillnets catch fish, but diving seabirds pursuing fish can become entangled and drown. That accidental capture is called bycatch. The buoy is designed to address that specific problem by changing what birds encounter near fishing gear.
What did the Cornwall trial find?
A two-year field trial off Cornwall tested the LEB alongside a commercially available bird-of-prey kite, referred to in reports as the “scarybird” kite. Fishtek Marine led the work with ten Cornish fishers; cameras on boats collected data that University of Exeter scientists analyzed. In this particular trial, the reported chance of guillemots and razorbills being caught was reduced by 59% with the buoy and 71% with the kite. These are trial results, not guaranteed reductions for other fisheries or seabird species. The study, “Above Water Deterrents Reduce Auk Bycatch in Gillnet Fisheries off the United Kingdom,” appeared in Conservation Letters in 2026.
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Buoy and kite compared
| Device | Reported reduction in capture chance | Reported reach | What is established |
|---|---|---|---|
| Looming Eye Buoy | 59% for guillemots and razorbills in the Cornwall trial | Described as greater than the kite’s; no precise distance stated in the cited account | Floating, moving eye-like marker attached to existing fishing equipment; no added lights or sound described |
| Bird-of-prey kite | 71% for guillemots and razorbills in the Cornwall trial | About 100 feet around its flight path, according to the Nautilus account | Commercially available kite used as a comparison in the trial |
The kite had the higher reported reduction in this trial, while the buoy was described as reaching farther than the kite’s localized flight path. That comparison does not establish a universal ranking: performance may depend on conditions, and the sources do not establish comparative cost or durability.
When and where might deterrents help most?
Bycatch in the Cornwall trial was concentrated in winter. That pattern points to the possibility of targeting deterrents during higher-risk periods rather than assuming equal risk year-round. It does not establish that winter is the peak-risk season in every fishery.
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A University of Exeter announcement estimated that 95,000 diving seabirds are incidentally captured and drown each year in European coastal gillnets. This is an estimate for European coastal gillnet fisheries as described in the announcement, not a global total. The trial’s value is that it tests possible mitigation in working conditions and identifies a seasonal pattern in the Cornwall data.
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Do eyes really scare birds away?
The eye-like marker draws on a broad idea: visible eyes or eyespots can act as deterrent signals in nature. A Nautilus feature also recounts the story of eye masks distributed to people exposed to tiger attacks in India as a way of making them appear watched. These examples offer context for the “enduring power of eyes” framing, but they are not evidence that all eyespots deter all animals.
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For the buoy, the field evidence is about a particular moving marker used near gillnets and the observed bycatch in one trial. It does not prove the mechanism—such as whether birds interpret the marker as an eye—or establish that a painted eye on a garden object would produce the same result.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the findings mean for fishers and conservation
The trial involved fishers and equipment used around active gillnet operations, so it offers evidence of a field-tested approach rather than a laboratory-only idea. The reported reductions matter because seabird bycatch has been difficult to mitigate in gillnets. They are encouraging, but they are not a measure of seabird population recovery, and the available reported summary does not supply the detailed statistical model or confidence intervals needed to assess the precision of each estimate.
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Tom Horton, the study’s lead author at the University of Exeter, said the work provides “some of the strongest evidence to date” that practical deterrents can substantially reduce seabird bycatch, and highlighted the opportunity to target mitigation where and when risk is highest. Yann Rouxel, bycatch programme manager at the RSPB, called the buoy and kite results “a major milestone” in reducing bycatch without impeding fishers at sea. Those statements describe the promise of this work; wider performance still needs to be judged in the fisheries and conditions where devices are used.
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