Bermuda has been highlighted in a film on the British Broadcasting Corporation as the birth place for new robotic technology that can kill invasive lionfish remotely.

The team from Robots in Service of the Environment were in Bermuda back in April designing, testing and ultimately making the first attempts at remote fishing.

They were joined by a team of scientists, conservationists and roboticists who gathered at Michael Douglas’s Ariel Sands hotel to dispatch the Guardian LF1, controlled by two men on a beach with an Xbox controller and computer screen.

The robot identifies the fish and stuns it with an electrical charge before sucking it in to its chamber.

Lionfish, originally from the Indo Pacific, are believed to pose a serious threat to Bermuda’s own fish populations as they have no natural predators in our waters and reproduce at an astonishing rate.

Colin and Erika Angle, Founders of the non-profit RSE which uses technology to tackle environmental issues, were interviewed by the BBC for the short clip.

They were here diving and the dive operator said “why not build a robot that can capture lionfish and help us with this problem?”

Mr Angle, who is also the founder and CEO of iRobot, said: “The slogan here in Bermuda is you have to eat ‘em to beat ‘em.”

“We think that RSE will serve at least as a proof point that if you combine a true, deep love of the world with an understanding of technology good things can happen.”

Volunteers of RSE spent more than a year designing the robot which can operate some 400 feet below the surface of the water.

To see the video visit: https://tinyurl.com/ycogescl

And to see The Royal Gazette’s original article on the robot, visit: https://tinyurl.com/y8qwbjwv