“Bird-shaped kites and a floating scarecrow are being tested to try to stop endangered seabirds drowning in fishing nets.

Every year an estimated 95,000 diving birds, including razorbills and guillemots, are accidentally caught in nets off European coasts.

But simple deterrents tested by Cornish fishers and devised by scientists and the RSPB have been shown to reduce the toll by about two-thirds.

The scarecrow – or more properly a looming-eyes buoy – has a spinning head with two large eyes that scare diving birds away from gillnets, walls of netting which hang vertically beneath the surface.”

From The Guardian.