Saving Seafood

Woods Hole Group is acquiring Faria Watchdog VMS

August 23, 2022 — Woods Hole Group, Inc. and Riverside Mfg. have entered into an agreement in which Woods Hole Group will purchase the entire fleet of Faria Watchdog Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) dedicated to fisheries products, technologies and services. Woods Hole Group, headquartered in Bourne, Massachusetts, is a subsidiary of CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) based in France, and is a supplier in good standing with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) within NOAA.

Faria Watchdog VMS systems have supported NMFS in the United States and international fisheries programs for more than a decade, and the fisheries fleet of Faria subscribers has grown to approximately 1,000 vessels, the companies stated in a press release. Riverside will transition active VMS subscriptions, technologies and specific assets to Woods Hole Group “over the next several months with no interruption to service for customers.”

“We are pleased to come to terms with Fred Merritt and his professional team at Riverside to expand our thriving sustainable fisheries business,” says Bob Hamilton, Woods Hole Group CEO. “We look forward to transitioning Riverside’s fisheries client base and technologies to Woods Hole Group, providing quality customer service and access to our industry-leading fisheries intelligence solutions.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

129 Fishing Industry Representatives Ask Congress to Oppose ‘Duplicative’ New Vessel Monitoring Requirements

September 27, 2021 — 129 fishing industry representatives have written to Congress asking them to reconsider a bill that would require all fishing vessels to use Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) in U.S. waters and on the high seas, citing redundancy with other monitoring systems, cost and privacy concerns.

The letter, organized by the Saving Seafood Coalition and delivered to the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, concerns H.R. 3075, the Illegal Fishing and Forced Labor Prevention Act. This legislation would require commercial fishing vessels to install AIS systems; however, most vessels already use Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) to track their locations. The letter notes several reasons why vessel operators prefer VMS to AIS, specifically privacy concerns associated with adopting AIS.

Current VMS hardware, unlike AIS, is based on secured end-to-end transmissions. AIS relies on VHF radio signals, which are susceptible to interception and risk being spoofed. Additionally, AIS data can be seen by other vessels and competitors, undermining privacy and data security that up until now has been an important part of NOAA’s vessel monitoring and data collection policies.

“We were concerned by the viewpoint expressed by Rep. Ed Case [D-HI], a

cosponsor of the bill, that no one ‘fishing in [United States] waters has an inherent right to privacy’ and that VMS data should not be considered proprietary,” the letter states. “That viewpoint is contrary to twenty-seven years of agency policy set forth by NOAA Administrative Order 216-100, which created a strict regime of controls to protect the privacy of data collected by the agency for purposes including the regulation and conservation of our fisheries.”

As noted in the letter, this position is shared by Janet Coit, who was recently confirmed as Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries. In earlier written testimony, she stated:

“[Section 501 of H.R. 3075] is duplicative of existing Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) requirements since it would require those vessels already equipped with VMS to carry AIS without significant benefits. AIS is primarily a collision avoidance system, but VMS are more effective for tracking fishing vessel movement and effort, are less susceptible to tampering, and have better tools for two-way communications with vessels.”

Read the letter here

 

Study on economics of fishing on the high seas

June 7, 2018 — As much as 54 percent of the high seas fishing industry would be unprofitable at its current scale without large government subsidies, according to a new study by researchers from the National Geographic Society; the University of California, Santa Barbara; Global Fishing Watch; the Sea Around Us project at the University of British Columbia; and the University of Western Australia. The research, published today in the open-access journal Science Advances, found that the global cost of fishing in the high seas ranged between $6.2 billion and $8 billion USD in 2014. Profits from this activity range between a loss of $364 million and a profit of $1.4 billion USD.

The high seas—marine waters beyond national jurisdiction—cover 64 percent of the ocean’s surface and are dominated by a small number of fishing countries, which reap most of the benefits of fishing this internationally shared area. While the environmental impacts of fishing on the high seas are well studied, a high level of secrecy around distant-water fishing had previously precluded reliable estimates of the economic costs and benefits of high seas fishing. However, newly compiled satellite data and machine learning have revealed a far more accurate picture of fishing effort across the globe at the level of individual vessels.

“The reason most fleets continue to operate in the high seas is that they receive government subsidies. Without subsidies and the forced labor some of them are known for, fishing would be unprofitable in over half of the high seas fishing grounds,” said Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and lead author of the study.

Using Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) and Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), the researchers were able to track the individual behavior, fishing activity and other characteristics of 3,620 vessels in near-real time. Combining this information with the global catch data from the University of British Columbia’s Sea Around Us project, the team was then able to determine how much effort the vessels expended, how large their catch was, and how much profit the catch generated.

Read the full story at PHYS.org