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VIIRS can spot brightly lit ships at night, which makes it well suited to hunt squid boats these vessels usually operate after dark, drawing squid up from the depths with huge banks of very bright lights. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In addition, Park and his colleagues scrutinized data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP, a satellite operated jointly by NASA and the U.S. In white is the 9-digit Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) of each vessel. White lines connect their most recent AIS position to the estimated position during the time of the satellite image, based on extrapolating the vessel’s speed and course. In this area, Global Fishing Watch received AIS messages from several vessels (only two shown). Grey ovals show where a neural net classifier identified pair trawlers. Related: Photos of Earth by Planet satellitesĪ satellite image of pair trawlers in North Korean waters. The researchers analyzed wide-field photos captured by Planet's shoebox-sized Dove cubesats, as well as targeted imagery from larger, sharper-eyed SkySats. The team also looked at optical imagery gathered by Earth-observing satellites operated by San Francisco-based company Planet. But many ships don't beam out AIS signals, and the ones operating illegally are very unlikely to do so. AIS signals stream continuously from transponders on ships, and these signals are often detected via satellite. So the researchers got a bird's-eye view, studying the region using four different types of satellite information.įor example, the researchers pored through Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, which is designed to help ships keep tabs on traffic in their area and avoid collisions. Many of the vessels plying these waters are dark, meaning they don't publicly broadcast their positions and don't show up in monitoring databases.
Fishing in the dark tab Patch#
Park and his colleagues tracked fishing activity in the Pacific around the Koreas, Japan and Russia, a big patch of poorly monitored ocean. Key findings of the JScience Advances paper, "Illuminating Dark Fishing Fleets in North Korea." (Image credit: © Global Fishing Watch)