been noticing a decline in the big yellowfin and bigeye tuna, and prized billfish like marlin. Many of these giants of the sea spawn in the Pacific and wind their paths around the Islands into Australian waters. Industrial fishing is the likely cause of the disappearance of these fish and the big, expanding distant water fishing fleets of Asia, the EU and the US fishing the Pacific is a major contributor. Pacific longliners have an appalling record of bycatch of sharks, marlin, turtles and other creatures every time they go out.  But it's the burgeoning purse seine tuna fishing fleet and its increasing use of destructive fish aggregation devices (FADs) that is the real culprit. Last year, over 3 million tonnes of tuna were caught in the Pacific. The majority of skipjack tuna caught in the Pacific -- that is, the tuna that ends up in cans on Australian super market shelves -- is fished using these 'FADs'. So what is a FAD? FADs are floating objects that tuna vessels cast adrift in the open ocean. FADs work because fish in the open ocean find random flotsam absolutely captivating. Small fish use it as a hiding place and larger animals flock to it as a source of shade and a fertile hunting ground. After a few weeks at sea, a FAD can develop an entire ecosystem around it -- which is wiped out entirely when the tuna boat returns and scoops the whole thing up in a seine net. At