What is a FAD?

Fish Aggregating Device

For centuries, men have noticed that fish tend to gather around objects floating on the surface of the ocean, such as logs, debris, etc. This natural phenomenon has been exploited by fishermen for a long time to help them detect and catch fish. Fishermen then started to build artificial floating objects (buoys, rafts, etc.). These floating objects are called Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) and are mainly used for industrial tuna fisheries (purse seiners) or to maintain or develop artisanal pelagic fisheries. FADs can be either anchored near the coasts (artisanal fisheries) or can drift with the currents (industrial fisheries). More than half of the world catch of tropical tuna come from fishing under drifting fADs.
 
The FADs' family

We can distinguish two main categories of FADs:
 > Anchored FADs :
            - light, they can be transported on board a rudimentary boat

A light anchored FAD in Martinique	Diagram of the first anchored FADs in Martinique according to Sacchi and Lagin (1985)

            - heavy, they require an adapted equipment for their deployment

A hawaiian heavy anchored FAD	First FADs established in Hawaii, according to Matsumoto (1981)

> Drifting FADs :
            - natural (algae, branches, logs, vegetable debris…)
            - resulting from human pollution (board, piece of machine of fishing….)
            - built by man (rafts, buoys, …)

Some examples of drifting FADs