If artisanal fishing has long used fish aggregating devices (FADs) to ensure food security at a local level, their use on an industrial scale can cause marine pollution and constitute a danger for maritime traffic. The very definition of FADs - floating structures, anchored or drifting, placed in the water by humans to promote the gathering of fish -, combined with a lack of maintenance or monitoring, leading to their being lost, transforms them into poten- tial sources of harmful consequences to the marine environment or to the coastline. Consi- deration of the legal definition of FADs, like wreck, makes it possible to establish certain obligations : including positive obligations towards ship captains using FADs, and liability for their removal by the ship owner whenever FADs are abandoned adrift at sea