July 24, 2025 — For centuries, the oceans have been a notoriously lawless place. And today’s industrial fishing vessels can sometimes be sneaky, turning off public tracking devices for months at a time or altering their signals to give a false location.
Recent advancements in satellite technology have made it possible to detect more of these ships that may be trying to hide. Known as “dark vessels,” they make up at least 70 percent of all fishing fleets on the ocean.
Two research groups used this data, provided by the nonprofit Global Fishing Watch, to track truant ships across millions of kilometers of so-called marine protected areas, zones officially designated by countries as part of international goals to protect 30 percent of oceans by 2030.
Their studies, published Thursday in Science, offer the first answers to a longstanding question: Do these protections work?