Tracking fishing vessels with albatrosses

Researchers report the use of large seabirds to monitor fishing vessels at sea. Undeclared and illegal fisheries harm ocean ecosystems. Implementing control measures against such fisheries requires real-time information on fishing vessel location, which is difficult to obtain, particularly in international waters. Henri Weimerskirch and colleagues developed portable data loggers capable of detecting radar emissions from vessels and rapidly transmitting GPS locations to a central database via satellite. To monitor vessel locations over a large area, the authors equipped 169 albatrosses from islands in the southern Indian Ocean with the data loggers between November 2018 and March 2019. By comparing detected radar signals with publicly available data from vessel Automatic Identification Systems (AISs), the authors estimated the proportion of undeclared vessels. More than one-third of vessels detected in international waters had no corresponding AIS signal, and this proportion was lower on average within national Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), but also varied significantly between EEZs. The loggers also provided information about the nature of seabird-vessel interactions, finding that juvenile albatrosses were less likely than adults to encounter and closely approach vessels, and that species varied in their attraction to vessels. The results suggest the feasibility of using animals to help patrol the oceans, according to the authors.

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Article #19-15499: “Ocean sentinel albatrosses locate illegal vessels and provide the first estimate of the extent of nondeclared fishing,” by Henri Weimerskirch et al.

MEDIA CONTACT: Henri Weimerskirch, Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Villiers en Bois, FRANCE; tel: +33-5-49-09-78-15; e-mail:

[email protected]