TAAF LUC FARGIER; WEIMERSKIRCH ET AL, PNAS 2000LIGHTING UP THE DARK
Oceans cover more than 360 million square
kilometres of the Earth’s surface. Navy patrols are
rare, expensive and simply can’t monitor every
boat. Many vessels possess a GPS transponder that
beams out their whereabouts, but such Automatic
Identification Systems (AIS) were designed for
avoiding collisions rather than tracking, and are only
required on larger boats.
For the unscrupulous fisher, that’s an invitation
to simply switch off their AIS and “go dark”. Some
go further, tampering with their signal to produce
false locations. Global Fishing Watch – a US-based
non-profit that tracks fishing boats using AIS data- has shown just how wild this false data can get,
with fishing boats located in the unlikeliest of places,
including the Himalayas and Antarctica.
But boats need radar to “see” other ships, land
and obstacles by bouncing radio waves off them;
illegal fishers use it to detect and evade patrols.
Weimerskirch’s latest project – Ocean Sentinel – has
exploited this vulnerability to find operators hiding
in plain sight.
His team had previously equipped albatrosses
with devices to study their behaviour and time spent
around fishing boats. Lightweight, solar-powered
and roughly the size of a small smartphone, the tech
featured GPS to monitor the bird’s whereabouts,
while a radar sensor picked up signals from boats to
reveal their location.
To be effective in real-time, however, the gadgets
needed an essential upgrade. Previously, researchers
had to wait until birds returned to their nests to
download the data – a long wait when adult foraging
trips can last up to 30 days and juveniles remain at
sea for several years.
The latest devices have an extra antenna that
streams data via satellites to a central website within
minutes of detecting radar. This can be viewed
anywhere with an internet connection, allowing
researchers to compare AIS locations and pinpoint
rogue operatives in real time.
“This is the first estimate ever of the proportion of
vessels, especially fishing vessels, that do not use their
AIS system for identification and location,” explains
Weimerskirch. Overall, 353 vessels were detected- 100 of which weren’t using AIS. Within regulated
national waters, where AIS is legally required, a quarter
of boats weren’t transmitting signals. In international
waters, a third of boats didn’t beam an AIS signal.
“This is really exciting,” says David Kroodsma,
Director of Research and Innovation at Global
Fisheries Worldwide. “Just a few years ago we
couldn’t track, publicly, any of the world’s industrial
fishing vessels. Now, with AIS and new technologies
like this, we will be able to know where all of the
world’s industrial fishing is taking place.”
SWEET JUSTICE
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a
serious threat to the sustainability of world fisheries
by overexploiting fish stocks. A worldwide study
estimated that one in every five fish is caught
through such illicit activity, which could be as high as
26 million tonnes of fish every year.
This has profound consequences for marine0 – 11 – 22 – 55 – 1818 – 12,150Charts showing the AIS locations for vessels
in the south Indian Ocean between Africa and
New Zealand in March 2019, comparing the
total number of vessels (below) and fishing
vessels only (bottom) in squares of 125 km.Previous pages: On the
remote Crozet Islands, a
nesting wandering albatross
pair watch their fledgling
stretch its wings. Albatross
and many other seabird
species are irresistibly drawn
to fishing vessels, such
as this French long-liner
(below) in Kerguelen waters,
by such things as fish refuse,
bait and other factors,
making them ideal observers
for illegal, unreported and
unregulated (IUU) vessels.
The job isn’t without
dangers: few IUU vessels
adopt low-cost measures
to protect birds, such as
planting flags and fluttering
streamers next to lines,
weighting lines with sinkers,
or using noise cannons to
scare them away.32 – COSMOS Issue 86
SURVEILLANCE AT SEA