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Sustainable Fishing Challenges / Feed

This group welcomes those in our marine conservation tech community to collaborate together on challenges related to sustainable fishing practices. Inspired by this thread focusing on minimising the impact of trawling gear on seafloor environments, the Sustainable Fishing Challenges group is a place to share resources, pose challenges, brainstorm creative solutions, and begin collaborative projects.

discussion

Species ID Needs?

Hi all! New to the WILDLABS space and interested in learning from others about species identification needs in fisheries and wildlife, ranging from monitoring and enforcement to...

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Hello Nadia,

A forensic genetic challenge  exists when DNA is destroyed by processes used in manufacturing of derivative animal products, preventing law enforcement in identification of protected species.  Alternative methods such as lipid profiles or isotope analysis unique to certain species may be possible but require voucher specimens that may or may not be available and methods that have not been tested or peer reviewed. Examples below:

  1. derivative products made from endangered shark squalene (eg. Liver oil capsules).
  2. derivative products made from lion bone and tiger bone (eg. lion bone cake and tiger wine).

    This is a law enforcement issue and would like to discuss possible solutions. 
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careers

Senior Software Engineer, Skylight

Join the mission to help tackle IUU fishing with cutting-edge tech! The Allan Institute for AI is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to accelerate efforts to make sure those working to restore our ocean have the tools...

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discussion

Hydromoth for coastal & offshore surveying

Hi all! I'm interested in deploying a Hydromoth on an Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV) to collect acoustic data for biodiversity analysis, for coastal and offshore marine surveys....

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Hi Sol,

I think your concern is well placed.  The pros typically tow an array of hydrophones, in its simpler configuration it looks like a long fat rubber hose containing maybe a dozen transducers feeding their electrical signals to a recording unit back on the ship.  All this is done to reduce noise from the ship, from waves crashing, and flow noise.  The multiple transducers can also be electronically tuned to be directional so that it can be "pointed" away from a noise source (like the ship).

In your position, I would just try the simplest thing that could work, then fix the problems as they arise.  It could be you may need to be dead in the water while recording.  To address surface noise (slapping waves, wind), you could mount the hydromoth low down on a spar buoy, which you tow into position.

 

Best of luck, it sounds like an interesting project (c:

Hydromoths are great for the price but they do not have the most streamlined housing and audio quality won't be as good as something like a SoundTrap or really any recorder with a proper hydrophone and 16-bit +DAQ system.

If you can afford it, this is an excellent SoundTrap based towed autonomous system NOAA have been using. It might work towed behind an autonomous vehicle

Alternatively, if you can have something inside the vehicle, a simple tape recorder (e.g. Tascam DR40X) and hydrophone on cable  will provide excellent sound quality. You could also use something like a Raspberry Pi with audio focussed ADC hat to record but that would require a bit more programming. Even consider a standard AudioMoth and plug a proper hydrophone into the audio jack - this would still have a 12-bit ADC but would provide better sound quality than a hydromoth (hydrophones are more omnidirectional and there's no air filled causing reflections and attenuation)

If you are considering an external microphone and a towed system, then you would also be in a position to consider a raspberry pi with an external microphone with sbts-aru. Another option:



 

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careers

Senior Spatial Ecologist

The Charles Darwin Foundation
The Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands (CDF) is recruiting a Senior Spatial Ecologist to join our shark research team and strengthen the ongoing long-term research on shark population ecology and...

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Link

CCI Defining Destructive Fishing Project: Update - YouTube

"This seminar detailed our achievements to date in building an expert-led and consensus-based definition of “destructive fishing” and our subsequent development of a monitoring framework, for adaptation to national and local contexts. We thank our attendees for their time and insightful questions." - Jack Murphy

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Fisheries Analyst (Pacific) 

Global Fishing Watch
With a focus on using and combining vessel tracking data, other satellite derived datasets and big data methods and AI generated estimates related to vessel identity and activity, the Fisheries Analyist with Global...

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careers

Data Scientist (Geospatial), Global Fishing Watch

Global Fishing Watch
Global Fishing Watch are looking for a data scientist to join the Research and Innovation team. Help us tackle geospatial data fusion problems to produce the most complete picture of human activity at sea.

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Link

Global Fishing Watch's Marine Manager Raises the Bar on Ocean Monitoring

An online portal to help governments, researchers, conservation advocates & others monitor activity throughout the world’s marine environment, as well as design & implement protected areas. The Marine Manager is now open to anyone. Marine Manager provides users with a trove of human activity and environmental insights.

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Link

Crowdfunding Aerial Baseline Study of Ghost Gear in Koh Phangan, Thailand

We are developing a project in Thailand, using drones to locate lost & discarded fishing gear across Koh Phangan, Thailand.
We're 86% there & only need $1500 to get us over the line. If you can help us, we would really appreciate it!
This project uses drones to create a baseline survey of lost fishing gear & document effects of entanglement on marine species.
We are working with Core Sea & Koh Phangan Sea Guardians to develop a locally led method for ongoing monitoring for discarded fishing gear, using drones.
Thank you, Sol, Tania & Kat

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discussion

Sea turtle monitoring

Hello everyone. I would like to know if anyone has suggestions on techniques to monitor sea turtles in areas where the density might be low and the sites are hard to access...

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Hi Evelyn

 

Not sure if you've come across this paper about green turtles in Turks and Caicos

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.00690/full

Hi Evelyn,

I learned of the torsooi database to collect sea turtle data. The database per se may not be that interesting as an asnwer to your question but I know they have developed software that recognizes individual sea turtles based on pictures of their heads. The pattern of the head segments allows this.

If you manage to make pictures remotely, by land-based cameras or drones or whatever, this may help monitoring the individuals.

In my humble and non-expert opinion, this software has the potential to do away with metal tags.

cheers

Frank

Hey Evelyn,

 

I work on building self-powered buoys that collect various sensor data (sea surface and sub-surface) that can be sent back to mainland over cellular/satellite comms. Are these nesting sites close to shore or are they relatively far out at sea?

 

Best,

Aadu

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article

News: The Latest in Conservation Tech

WILDLABS Team
Check out this round-up of three of the latest news stories from the conservation tech world.  See more conservation tech news by subscribing to our bi-monthly digest. 

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article

Download Now: The Technical Difficulties Editorial Series

WILDLABS Team
Our first WILDLABS Editorial Series is now available for download! Read the full Technical Difficulties collection and explore stories of challenges, failures, and lessons learned from the conservation tech community....

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article

Technical Difficulties: Tracking Thunderbird

Ellie Warren
In her article for the Technical Failures Editorial Series, WILDLABS' Ellie Warren discusses how the loss of one tagged sea turtle represents the wider challenges faced by conservation efforts, and how the collaborative...

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event

Webinar: Implementing SMART in the Marine Environment

SMART
This webinar from SMART will provide examples of SMART's marine applications via several diverse case studies, and share exciting new SMART developments on the horizon in the coming year, including targeted integrations...

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article

Announcing the 2021 CLP Team Award Winners

Conservation Leadership Programme
Our friends at the Conservation Leadership Programme are proud to announce their 2021 CLP Team Award recipients! We'll be featuring interviews with some CLP winners about their projects, the technology they're using,...

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discussion

Recent articles/resources

Hi all, Just some things I've come across on Twitter or through Wildlabs that weren't in a thread yet, for everyone's reference! https://fiscot.org/the-role-of-...

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article

Using AIS Data to Investigate the World’s Fishing Ports

Max Schofield
How can remotely monitoring fishing vessels allow us to prevent illegal and unsustainable fishing practices? Check out this blog post from Max Schofield, originally shared on OceanMind, to learn about how AIS (Automated...

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