Fishing has always involved ingenuity and invention, from the Pacific Islanders’ ancient tailoring of bones and shells into fish hooks (long before metal arrived in their cultures) to modern uses of everything from rotational sensors to machine learning to digitally understand where, when and how fishing takes place. Innovation typically takes place “in-house”, i.e. led by the fishing industry itself, with an increasing movement of start-ups, NGOs and entrepreneurs – motivated primarily by tackling the environmental and social challenges of seafood production – now joining this challenge. We have created a new “Sustainable Fishing Challenges” group on WILDLABS to try foster more of this innovation and collaboratively make fishing fit for the future.
At a very basic level, the three essential elements of fishing are 1. The vessel, 2. The fishing equipment (or “gear”), and 3. The fish (obviously). While some commonplace technologies are unrecognisable from those of the past (i.e. sonar fish finders, digital catch logbooks), some of the crucial components of the job have altered little (i.e. net design). Newly proposed vessel, gear or fish catch monitoring technologies must be robust, efficient and durable, meaning innovation needs to be answering a genuine need and be subject to thorough, collaborative testing (and consensus-building) before new advances are adopted across whole fleets or countries.
In this group, we challenge users to contribute their insights/expertise/opportunities across each of these three areas.
Learn more about these challenge areas:
Group curators
Fauna & Flora
Fisheries and Biodiversity Techical Specialist - lead FFI's insititutional fisheries strategy
- 0 Resources
- 14 Discussions
- 3 Groups
Worked as a mechanical engineer for a defence co, then software engineer, then for a research lab specialising in underwater robotics.
- 1 Resources
- 139 Discussions
- 16 Groups
- @carlybatist
- | she/her
Science Outreach Lead-Rainforest Connection (RFCx) & Arbimon; Ecoacoustics, biodiversity monitoring, primates, lemurs
- 69 Resources
- 285 Discussions
- 18 Groups
- @StephODonnell
- | She / Her
WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Executive Manager at WILDLABS.
- 152 Resources
- 668 Discussions
- 30 Groups
Freaklabs
I'm an engineer and product designer working on wildlife conservation technology.
- 0 Resources
- 273 Discussions
- 14 Groups
Wildlife Drones
Wildlife Drones has developed the world’s most innovative radio animal-tracking system using drones so you can track your radio-tagged animals like never before.
- 11 Resources
- 8 Discussions
- 32 Groups
- @bradnahill
- | he / him
SEE Turtles
Brad has worked in sea turtle conservation & ecotourism for 20+ years. He is the lead writer of Sea Turtle Research and Conservation and co-author of the Worldwide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles. He has won the President's Award from the International Sea Turtle Society.
- 1 Resources
- 4 Discussions
- 6 Groups
PhD Candidate in autonomous marine biodiversity modelling
- 0 Resources
- 11 Discussions
- 8 Groups
- @MattyD797
- | He/Him
PhD Student | Cornell University | Smithsonian Institution; My focus is in computational ecology within fishery acoustics
- 0 Resources
- 10 Discussions
- 12 Groups
Allen Institute for AI
Communications for EarthRanger and Skylight
- 8 Resources
- 5 Discussions
- 10 Groups
Arribada Initiative
Director at Arribada, a UK-based conservation technology research & development organisation
- 2 Resources
- 95 Discussions
- 11 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 12 Discussions
- 8 Groups
I am the executive director of FishEye Collaborative, a non-profit leveraging emergent underwater listening technologies to grow our understanding of marine ecosystems. I am also the president of FishEye Acoustics, a marine tech company developing a new class of acoustic sensors.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
The Centre for Statistics in Ecology, Environment and Conservation, a research group within the Department of Statistical Sciences at the University of Cape Town, is now hiring for a funded postdoc or PhD postion with...
1 November 2021
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...
8 October 2021
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,...
17 May 2021
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...
2 February 2021
WILDLABS community members are invited to submit an Expression of Interest to Fisheries Innovation Scotland (FIS) to participate in two research projects involving conservation tech's role in the future of sustainable...
8 December 2020
As we launch our new Sustainable Fishing Challenges group in the WILDLABS community, we are excited to welcome Daniel Steadman, the group manager, to give us an overview of three major areas in which #tech4wildlife...
4 December 2020
Do you have innovative #tech4wildlife ideas that could save one of the most endangered species on earth from extinction? Apply now to join Vaquita Hack, a hackathon for students and early career conservationists! This...
10 November 2020
Funding
Do you use #tech4wildlife in your ocean conservation work and want to get creative for prize money? Smart Oceans 2020 wants to see your videos, photos, and infographics that highlight ocean challenges or solutions. The...
8 October 2020
Today, Sustainable Fishing Challenges group leader Daniel Steadman discusses how fishing gear itself could benefit from fresh technological innovations to prevent both environmental damage and damage to species and...
19 August 2020
As we launch our new Sustainable Fishing Challenges group in the WILDLABS community, we are excited to welcome Daniel Steadman, the group manager, to give us an overview of three major areas in which #tech4wildlife...
4 August 2020
Funding
The 2020 Hackaday Prize competition has begun! This year, Conservation X Labs has partnered with the Hackaday Prizes as one of four nonprofits seeking tech-based solutions to urgent challenges. Conservation X Labs'...
26 May 2020
Applications are now open for a second round of the £10 million UK Seafood Innovation Fund to transform the future landscape of the seafood industry.
11 February 2020
November 2023
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Recently updated products
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi Sol,If the maximum depth is 30m, it would be worth experimenting with HydroMoth in this application especially if the deployment time is short. As Matt says, the air-filed case... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 1 month ago | |
Congrats @MattyD797 and team!!! We do a lot of work in the underwater bioacoustic realm and your tool certainly seems like it would be a great instrumental addition to the... |
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Acoustics, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 2 months ago | |
Hi Scott, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here! It would be great to learn more about this, would you be interested in finding a time to chat? Thanks! |
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Marine Conservation, Sustainable Fishing Challenges, Wildlife Crime | 3 months 1 week ago | |
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.... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Marine Conservation, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
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... |
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 2 years ago | |
I’m an editor at FoodUnfolded – an EU-funded platform focused on reconnecting people with their food and where it comes from,... |
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 years ago | |
Hi all, Just some things I've come across on Twitter or through Wildlabs that weren't in a thread yet, for everyone's... |
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 years 1 month ago | |
Hi all! I am not in the marine/aquatic space myself, but I stumbled across this resource and wanted to share with you. It's a list... |
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 years 1 month ago | |
Hi Karima - Are you looking for volunteers in specific regions or fisheries? |
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 years 3 months ago | |
Happy new year all! A couple of great resources on the use of technology in the small-scale fisheries sector. Firstly a series of... |
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 years 5 months ago | |
Hi Wildlabbers, Following our recent Tech Tutors episode on monitoring fishing (check it out here! and ask Max... |
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Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 years 6 months ago | |
Hi Wildlabbers, Welcome back to Tech Tutors for season 2! This season's first episode featured Oceanmind's... |
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Marine Conservation, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 years 6 months ago |
New WildLabs Funding & Finance group
5 June 2024 3:24pm
6 June 2024 1:38am
6 June 2024 4:16am
Drop-deployed HydroMoth
2 April 2024 10:20am
15 April 2024 6:53am
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for your advice, this is really helpful!
I'm planning to use it in a seagrass meadow survey for a series of ~20 drops/sites to around 30 m, recording for around 10 minutes each time, in Cornwall, UK.
At this stage I reckon we won't exceed 30 m, but based on your advice, I think this sounds like not the best setup for the surveys we want to try.
We will try the Aquarian H1a, attached to the Zoom H1e unit, through a PVC case. This is what Aquarian recommended to me when I contacted them too.
Thanks for the advice, to be honest the software component is what I was most interested in when it came to the AudioMoth- is there any other open source software you would recommend for this?
Best wishes,
Sol
21 April 2024 7:10pm
Hey Sol,
No problem at all. Depending on your configuration, the Audiomoth software would have to work on a PCB with an ESP32 chip which is the unit on the audiomoth/hydromoth, so you would have to make a PCB centered around this chip. You could mimic the functionality of the audiomoth software on another chip, like on a raspberry pi with python's pyaudio library for example. The problem you would have is that the H1A requires phantom power, so it's not plug and play. I'm not too aware with the H1e, but maybe you can control the microphone through the recorder that is programmable through activations by the RPi (not that this is the most efficient MCU for this application, but it is user friendly). A simpler solution might be to just record continuously and play a sound or take notes of when your 10 min deployment starts. I think it should last you >6 hours with a set of lithium energizer batteries. You may want to think about putting a penetrator on the PVC housing for a push button or switch to start when you deploy. They make a few waterproof options.
Just somethign else that occured to me, but if you're dropping these systems, you'll want to ensure that the system isn't wobbling in the seagrass as that will probably be all you will hear on the recordings, especially if you plan to deploy shallower. For my studies in Curacao, we aim to be 5lbs negative, but this all depends on your current and surface action. You might also want to think about the time of day you're recording biodiversity in general. I may suggest recording the site for a bit (a couple days or a week) prior to your study to see what you should account for (e.g. tide flow/current/anthropogenic disturbance) and determine diel patterning of vocalizations you are aiming to collect if subsampling at 10 minutes.
Cheers,
Matt
3 May 2024 12:55pm
Hi Sol,
If the maximum depth is 30m, it would be worth experimenting with HydroMoth in this application especially if the deployment time is short. As Matt says, the air-filed case means it is not possible to accurately calibrate the signal strength due to the directionality of the response. For some applications, this doesn't matter. For others, it may.
Another option for longer/deeper deployments would be an Aquarian H2D hydrophone which will plug directly into AudioMoth Dev or AudioMoth 1.2 (with the 3.5mm jack added). You can then use any appropriately sized battery pack.
If you also connect a magnetic switch, as per the GPS board, you can stop and start recording from outside the housing with the standard firmware.
Alex
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - FinDrop: Accessible Acoustic Monitoring for Mesophotic Marine Environments
5 April 2024 10:22pm
7 April 2024 6:07pm
Congrats @MattyD797 and team!!! We do a lot of work in the underwater bioacoustic realm and your tool certainly seems like it would be a great instrumental addition to the community. Look forward to learning more about your project!
Liz
Project71: A Venture Competition for Ocean Regeneration
4 March 2024 10:49am
Species ID Needs?
19 February 2024 7:55pm
23 February 2024 2:10pm
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:
- derivative products made from endangered shark squalene (eg. Liver oil capsules).
- 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.
1 March 2024 2:27am
Hi Scott, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here! It would be great to learn more about this, would you be interested in finding a time to chat? Thanks!
Senior Software Engineer, Skylight
21 February 2024 3:44pm
3x Ai 4 Conservation Job Roles (UK)
15 February 2024 3:28pm
Hydromoth for coastal & offshore surveying
16 November 2023 7:36am
18 November 2023 1:47am
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:
19 December 2023 2:20pm
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)
20 December 2023 6:57am
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:
Senior Spatial Ecologist
24 August 2023 11:22pm
Using an AI-based Warning System to Protect Whales in South Africa
28 July 2023 11:01am
Working with WWF, Vodacom is using cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) technology and infrared cameras to help minimise whale entanglements in mussel farming ropes off the southwest coast of South Africa in Saldanha Bay.
CCI Defining Destructive Fishing Project: Update - YouTube
19 June 2023 4:26pm
"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
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Fisheries Analyst (Pacific)
15 June 2023 12:15pm
Ashored Innovations: Hardware and Software for Sustainable Fishing
1 June 2023 9:46pm
Data Visualization in Service of Coral Reefs in Micronesia
17 May 2023 8:53pm
Data Scientist (Geospatial), Global Fishing Watch
19 April 2023 10:34am
Office & Warehouse Exec
5 April 2023 6:22pm
How do I get started with mobile phones in sea turtle monitoring?
13 February 2023 10:01am
Global Fishing Watch's Marine Manager Raises the Bar on Ocean Monitoring
13 January 2023 12:09am
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.
Crowdfunding Aerial Baseline Study of Ghost Gear in Koh Phangan, Thailand
18 December 2022 11:06am
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
Sea turtle monitoring
11 February 2021 11:44am
13 December 2021 6:19pm
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
18 March 2022 11:53pm
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
18 May 2022 6:03am
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
News: The Latest in Conservation Tech
10 March 2022 12:00am
Download Now: The Technical Difficulties Editorial Series
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Opportunity: PhD or Postdoctoral Research Fellowships - Chinstrap penguin biologging
1 November 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: Tracking Thunderbird
8 October 2021 12:00am
Innovators wanted: the UN Food Systems Summit
4 June 2021 1:00pm
Webinar: Implementing SMART in the Marine Environment
20 May 2021 12:00am
Announcing the 2021 CLP Team Award Winners
17 May 2021 12:00am
Recent articles/resources
14 April 2021 1:31pm
Repository of fish/fisheries tech projects!
9 April 2021 2:53pm
5 June 2024 4:14pm