Submission + - Albatrosses Outfitted With GPS Trackers Detect Illegal Fishing Vessels (smithsonianmag.com)
schwit1 writes: Out here, surveillance often relies on something of an honor system, wherein vessels voluntarily report their presence through an automatic identification system (AIS) that can easily be switched off. “If any boats cuts off its AIS, nobody knows where the boat is,” Weimerskirch says.
Over the course of six months, the team’s army of albatrosses surveyed over 20 million square miles of sea. Whenever the birds came within three or so miles of a boat, their trackers logged its coordinates, then beamed them via satellite to an online database that officials could access and cross-check with AIS data. Of the 353 fishing vessels detected, a whopping 28 percent had their AIS switched off—a finding that caught Weimerskirch totally off guard. “No one thought it would be so high,” he says.
The number of covert ships was especially high in international waters, where about 37 percent of vessels operated AIS-free. Closer to the shore, in regions where individual countries have exclusive economic rights, things were more variable: While all the fish-laden boats detected around the Australian territory of Heard Island kept their AIS on, none of those lurking off the shores of South Africa’s Prince Edward Islands did. These differences seem to reflect how regularly coastal states survey their shores, Weimerskirch says.
Over the course of six months, the team’s army of albatrosses surveyed over 20 million square miles of sea. Whenever the birds came within three or so miles of a boat, their trackers logged its coordinates, then beamed them via satellite to an online database that officials could access and cross-check with AIS data. Of the 353 fishing vessels detected, a whopping 28 percent had their AIS switched off—a finding that caught Weimerskirch totally off guard. “No one thought it would be so high,” he says.
The number of covert ships was especially high in international waters, where about 37 percent of vessels operated AIS-free. Closer to the shore, in regions where individual countries have exclusive economic rights, things were more variable: While all the fish-laden boats detected around the Australian territory of Heard Island kept their AIS on, none of those lurking off the shores of South Africa’s Prince Edward Islands did. These differences seem to reflect how regularly coastal states survey their shores, Weimerskirch says.
