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This is scientific American 60 second science.

I'm Christopher Intagliata.

If you've ever been on a fishing boat, you've probably seen flocks of birds following in your wake, hoping to catch a snack. Well, now scientists say they can use those birds behavior to track illegal fishing boats. Here's how that works. Researchers attach data loggers to the backs of

169 albatrosses in the southern and Indian oceans. The devices weighed only an ounce

and a half, but they included a GPS and were able to detect the presence and

intensity of radar signals emanating from boats. That information was then

transmitted by satellite so the researchers could track the location of the birds and

thus the radar emitting boats in real time.

The scientists then cross-checked that data against the known location of boats

gleaned from a system

and discrepancies appeared frequently.

More than a third of the times the birds' loggers

detected radar signals and therefore a boat,

no such boat appeared in the official log, meaning that the

vehicles had likely switched off their automatic identification systems, something the

researchers say probably happens in illegal fishing operations.

The results are in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The work suggests birds could be an effective boat monitoring tool,

as long as illegal fishing operations don't target the birds that is.

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