Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: Drone Footage Shows Massive Schools of Baitfish Off New York Coast

July 21, 2026 — Massive schools of menhaden (also called baitfish) were spotted lining the shore of Southampton, New York, on July 17.

Aerial footage by drone pilot Joanna Steidle shows dense clusters of the fish swimming just off a beach on Long Island.

Steidle advised swimmers to avoid the areas where baitfish are congregating because larger predators often hunt there.

Menhaden are a keystone species and provide an essential food source for the coastal ecosystem, according to Steidle. Credit: Joanna Steidle via Storyful

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

ALASKA: Alaskan fisheries scientists hoping to use AI for salmon enumeration in Bristol Bay

July 20, 2026 — Counting salmon in Alaska has been done the same way since the 1950s.

A field biologist climbs a tower, counts the number of fish swimming through the area every 10 minutes on the hour, hops down and into a skiff, moves to the opposite bank, and counts for another 10 minutes. They then spend 40 minutes reporting that data – just to do it all again the next hour.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

From making a living to saving lives: spent fishing nets are snaring Russian drones in Ukraine

July 16, 2026 — Local fishing nets, once bound for recycling, are now saving lives in Ukraine. The spent nets are being repurposed to protect soldiers from Russian drone attacks.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a “special military operation.” Now, nearly four-and-a-half years later, the war rages on. And it’s a new kind of warfare, where small armed drones supplement expensive missiles.

A new kind of warfare requires new defense strategies. And, it turns out, fishing nets are an effective tool against exploding drones.

Eric Klose, founder of the Boston-based impact-first investment group Ground Squirrel Ventures learned this on a visit to Ukraine last year. While there, he met with some humanitarian groups, and he posed a question:

“If I could fix one thing, what would you want it to be?”

The answer was simple, and surprising – nets.

Nets cover hundreds of miles of roadways near the front line. They are draped over trees to protect gathering places. They cover trenches, and bombed-out windows and doors.
Big trawling nets, seine nets, and even thin-filament gill nets play a role.

Klose said soldiers cut gill nets into strips and keep them in their packs to use for emergency cover. They seal up openings like bombed-out windows and doors on the front lines.

Read the full article at Maine Public

AI, drones, and salmon: What new technology could mean for Bristol Bay sockeye counts

July 10, 2026 — Norm Van Vactor stands on the bank of the Wood River facing a mysterious looking grey box with blinking lights.

“So that’s the habitat and the home for our ‘bird’, and it’s a completely self-contained unit,” he said, pointing to the box.

At exactly 8:30 a.m., the box opens and a drone emerges. It quickly takes off on an automated flight path, flying to an observation position above the right bank of the Wood River. It hovers there for a few minutes, with its camera fixed on the river bed.

The goal is to feed the images into a computer model to generate more accurate salmon escapement counts. For over 70 years, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has used counting towers in Bristol Bay to track salmon escapement. That means techs hand count each fish that swims by. But new technology is on its way to the Bay, Van Vactor is a project lead.

“I feel strongly that there are some tools out there, like this, that could significantly enhance the quality of our data collection that helps manage this fishery,” he said. Van Vactor noted that this project wouldn’t have been possible just a few years ago.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

NFSC used uncrewed vessel to bolster New England fisheries survey

August 20, 2025 — The Northeast Fisheries Science Center used a DriX uncrewed vessel to complement its survey of southern New England fisheries this spring, with the small drone collecting data that would be difficult for traditional research vessels to gather.

NOAA Fisheries has promoted the use of uncrewed systems as an emerging technology that can be used to overcome several challenges to federal government fisheries surveys. Advocates say the autonomous vessels can navigate in areas where larger vessels can’t operate, such as in and around the increasing number of offshore wind developments. While those installations have threatened to disrupt NOAA Fisheries long-term data collection efforts, researchers believe drones can help fill the gaps in data collection.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Finders keepers: New trawl technology helps fleets fish smarter and managers track biomass, despite covid disruptions

September 15, 2020 — In trawl fisheries, vessels usually spend costly amounts of time and fuel searching for fish. Even with advanced technology, the cost of finding fish comes with the price of investment. To increase efficiency, Kongsberg Maritime of Norway has developed an unmanned surface vehicle that can hunt for fish at a fraction of the cost of a fully manned fishing vessel.

“The vessel is equipped with high-definition SX95 omnidirectional sonar,” says Richard Mills, head of marine robotics sales at Kongsberg. “Then there is a moon pool in which we can put other equipment. We just put an EK80 echosounder in one for a company we can’t name, and we are hoping to demonstrate it next year for NOAA.” According to Mills, the USV can search large expanses of ocean and transmit data to land-based receivers and fishing vessels. “We sit down with our customers and look at cost benefits,” says Mills, noting that the USV could operate for as little as 15 percent of a manned vessel’s crew costs and fuel costs.

The 26.5-foot USV has a 7.3-foot beam and draws 2.3 feet. For receiving commands and transmitting data, the vessel has a mast that reaches 14.4 feet above the sea surface. The vessel can run autonomously or be operated from a laptop PC or radio control with data telemetry via a Kongsberg’s K-MATE control system, with communication through Maritime Broadband Radio and Iridium satellite (VSAT optional).

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Pollock Survey Begins in Eastern Bering Sea

July 16, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

For the past four decades, a team of scientists have conducted an acoustic trawl survey from a NOAA research vessel in the eastern Bering Sea. They collect acoustic measurements of fish abundance and distribution. They also sample fish by capturing them with trawl nets to groundtruth the acoustic signals to confirm the species. They also are able to learn more about the fish themselves—for example, their age, length, weight, and reproductive state.

Scientists believe using acoustic technology on saildrones to survey in the eastern Bering Sea will provide a reliable estimate of pollock abundance, based on past experience comparing the technology to ship-based surveys. It also helps that pollock are the dominant fish species in this area, minimizing the need to further sample with a trawl net to confirm species.

Since the standard surveys were cancelled this year due to COVID-19, data collected by the saildrones will fill a gap in the survey time series. Scientists use these survey data along with other data to assess pollock population abundance and trends (whether the stock is increasing or decreasing in size). The saildrone survey is expected to take two months to complete.

In late June, after some 40 days at sea, the three saildrones arrived at Unimak Pass, a 20-nautical-mile gap between Unimak Island and Ugamak Island that separates the North Pacific Ocean from the Bering Sea. At this point the saildrones separated. Each saildrone will cover a third of the 600-nautical-mile-wide survey area, which is bordered by Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to the south and the edge of the eastern Bering Sea shelf to the west.

The saildrones will complete a series of north-south transects moving from east to west; the mission is designed to mimic a typical ship survey as closely as possible in the amount of time available. Each vehicle is equipped with a Simrad EK80 high-precision split-beam echo sounder to map fish abundance.

Read the full release here

NOAA ramps up use of drones to collect fish, seafloor and weather data

June 25, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA:

Three shiny, orange-red autonomous surface vessels set out on the water from Alameda, California, in May bound for the Bering Sea where they will survey the nation’s largest fish stock and monitor changing weather and ocean conditions in the Arctic.

The surface vessels are part of an armada of autonomous (unmanned) ocean vehicles NOAA is deploying this summer in the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans to provide high-quality environmental data for resource management and weather forecasting.

“We are accelerating the use of unmanned systems during COVID-19 to meet critical mission needs at a time when some of our ship and aircraft missions have been postponed for safety reasons,” said retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy NOAA administrator. “The innovative systems will provide valuable information for communities at a time when it may be difficult to do so by other means.”

The missions support NOAA’s Unmanned Systems Strategy to advance the use of unmanned systems, which was announced last November at the White House Science & Technology Summit.

Read the full release here

Measuring Atlantic Bluefin Tuna with a Drone

June 10, 2020 — This novel use of drones is a promising way to remotely monitor these hard-to-see fish

Researchers have used an unmanned aerial system (or drone) to gather data on schooling juvenile Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Maine.

This pilot study tested whether a drone could keep up with the tuna while also taking photographs that captured physical details of this fast-moving fish. The drone was equipped with a high-resolution digital still image camera. Results show that drones can capture images of both individual fish and schools. They may be a useful tool for remotely monitoring behavior and body conditions of the elusive fish.

Individual fish lengths and widths, and the distance between fish near the sea surface, were measured to less than a centimeter of precision. We used an APH-22, a battery-powered, six-rotor drone. The pilot study was conducted in the Atlantic bluefin tuna’s foraging grounds northeast of Cape Cod in the southern Gulf of Maine.

“Multi-rotor unmanned aerial systems won’t replace shipboard surveys or the reliance on manned aircraft to cover a large area,” said Mike Jech, an acoustics researcher at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and lead author of the study. “They have a limited flight range due to battery power and can only collect data in bursts. Despite some limitations, they will be invaluable for collecting remote high-resolution images that can provide data at the accuracy and precision needed by managers for growth and ecosystem models of Atlantic bluefin tuna.”

Read the full story at Environment Coastal & Offshore

Your virtual crow’s nest: Drones in commercial fishing

March 6, 2020 — According to legend, the term “crow’s nest” derives from the practice of Viking sailors, who carried crows or ravens in a cage secured to the top of the mast. In cases of poor visibility, a crow was released, and the navigator plotted a course corresponding to the bird’s flight path, which invariably headed toward the nearest land. If the bird didn’t return, it was a sign that land was near. The Bible also tells us that while on the ark, Noah released a raven first, and then doves, to find dry land.

Sailing vessels used a crow’s nest as a vantage point to spot other ships, hazards, land or, in the case of fishing ships, fish schools near the surface, long before radar was invented. Fishermen have always relied on the understanding of the elements to guide them: the water current, its temperature, the direction of the wind and its humidity are important information used to locate fish. Now, drones are bringing some fishfinding technology back above the water.

Modern times have given fishermen new tools to search for fish schools, from the radar or sonar to GPS. Fish shoal and school together because large numbers gives them some kind of protection against some of their natural predators. The same critical mass that provides the safety of numbers also makes them easier to spot.

Drones make it more accessible to search for large quantities of fish or in some cases, large fish. While owners of bigger offshore fishing boats may have the economic means to use technologies like multibeam echosounders, small-boat operators may find that drones are an affordable solution to spot fish schools. Raymarine’s Axiom UAV application is a good example of such a solution, as it brings together the power of advanced marine electronics and advanced unmanned aerial vehicles.

Read the full story at National Fisherman