Big brother at sea

Satellites are spying illegal fishing from space

From Hakai Magazine by Mara Johnson-Groh

Five hundred kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, the American Eagle, a purse seiner, meets a refrigerated cargo ship.
The two ships drift slowly together in the tropical water for eight hours.

Encounters like this are common practice, allowing ships on long fishing voyages to refuel and transfer their catch—likely what the two ships were doing.
But the practice, called transshipment, can also disguise nefarious acts, such as smuggling illegally caught fish or even human trafficking.

 In the Indian Ocean, off the remote Saya de Malha bank, the refrigerated cargo vessel (reefer) Leelawadee was seen with two unidentified likely fishing vessels tied alongside.

Image Captured by DigitalGlobe on Nov. 30, 2016.

Credit: DigitalGlobe © 2017

Ship to ship transfers can be made quickly and covertly on the high seas, leaving law enforcement officials unaware of the passage of illegal cargo in this watery Wild West.
And it’s no small problem: a 2014 study found that up to a third of wild-caught seafood sold in the United States was harvested illegally.
To combat this shadowy business, Global Fishing Watch, is monitoring the world’s fishing fleets by satellites, hoping to cast light on the dark places beyond national borders.

Global Fishing Watch uses Google Cloud technology to publish fishing efforts around the globe using machine learning.
Everyone can help to observe fishing vessel operators which might practice illegal activity from The Global Fishing Watch map.
With Indonesian Government, Global Fishing Watch overlaps Indonesian Fishing Activity Layer with Global Fishing Activity Layer, which enrich our views and analysis on fishing activities inside and outside Indonesian water. 

Global Fishing Watch monitors the positions of boats by tracking the broadcasts from their onboard automated identification system (AIS) transponders.
All passenger ships and vessels larger than 300 gross tonnage are required by the International Maritime Organization to transmit their position.
The system’s main purpose is to reduce the likelihood of collisions between ships, but Global Fishing Watch analysts found they can follow a vessel, decipher its fishing activity, and see where it meets other ships.

 The Hai Feng 648 is with an unidentified fishing vessel off the coast of Argentina.

There is a large mostly Chinese squid fleet just beyond the EEZ boundary.

The Hai Feng 648 was previously with the squid fleet at the edge of the Peruvian EEZ and in 2014 took illegally processed catch from the Lafayette into port in Peru.

This image was acquired on Nov. 30, 2016.

Credit: DigitalGlobe © 2017

With data from AIS and other satellite tracking systems, the team has created a global map of transshipping activity.
They’ve found that ships cluster outside the boundaries of exclusive economic zones—areas where marine resources are regulated—raising suspicions that the transshipments are associated with illegal fishing.

 From 2012 to 2016 researchers identified 5,000 likely cases of transshipment—meetings between fishing vessels and reefers.

They also found an additional 86,000 cases where two reefers met at sea, which may also indicate smuggling.

Despite the extensive vessel tracking, the team can’t say for sure what ships like the American Eagle are up to.
“We may be talking about the issue of transshipment, but what we’re detecting really are what we call vessel rendezvous,” says Nathan Miller, a data scientist with Global Fishing Watch.
“These are two vessels that get close to each other and potentially meet. We don’t even know if they actually meet—all we can detect is they get very, very close together for an extended period of time.”

Global Fishing Watch Reveals a Fisheries Management Success in the Phoenix Islands (Kiribati)

The best they can do, says Bjorn Bergman, a data analyst with the project, is provide the data for authorities to dig into further.
Recently, Global Fishing Watch data was passed to Ecuadorian authorities looking into the transportation of an illegal shark catch near the Galapagos Islands.
“The high seas present a big challenge because that’s where most of the slavery and much of the illegal fishing is, so [Global Fishing Watch] is fantastic to have,” says Daniel Pauly, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia.
“This gives additional weapons to hard-pressed authorities in various countries.”

All of Global Fishing Watch’s data is publicly available on their website, where it’s posted just days after the signals are received.
Automated notifications available through the website can help port authorities, marine conservationists, and other interested parties monitor specific regions for suspicious behavior.
The data is also valuable to companies that want to tell consumers where their seafood comes from.
“Everything that we’re doing … is really about transparency,” says Miller.
“That’s going to be the way in which positive change happens.”

Links :

• Phys : Hidden no more: First-ever global view of transshipment in commercial fishing industry
• UCN : Oceana: 50% of suspected global transshipping events in Russian waters
• Oceana : Report on transshipping
• Francisco Blaha blog : Inroads into illegal transhipments analysis
• GeoGarage blog : The fishing wars are coming / Getting serious about overfishing / How satellite technology is helping to ...

France & misc. SHOM layer update in the GeoGarage platform

The most beautiful bay in the world !
see the november 2017 update (7431 SHOM map)
VS ancient 3647 paper map (published : 1878)
on the GeoGarage platform

77 nautical raster charts updated

see GeoGarage news

As Ocean drones proliferate, marine wildlife are getting a bit annoyed

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, have developed an innovative unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can stay on station beneath the water, then launch into the air to perform a variety of missions.

From Oceans Deeply by Matthew O. Berger

Marine scientists and sanctuary managers are grappling with how to contain a growing nuisance – which could harm whales, seals and other marine mammals – while ensuring scientists can continue using drones for valuable research.

The airborne invaders began showing up in 2013.

In one of the earliest instances, two guys with two drones flying in tandem made multiple passes over a herd of pregnant harbor seals below Hopkins Marine Station at the southern end of Monterey Bay off the coast of California.
Scared, the seals stampeded into the water.
Scolded by passersby on the trail above the beach, the drone operators said they could do whatever they wanted.

But they can’t, not legally anyway.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits disturbing marine mammals, even common ones like harbor seals.
And Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which spans the offshore waters and shoreline from north of San Francisco to nearly 300 miles (480km) south, has had regulations banning low-flying aircraft of any kind since 1992.

Following Snotbot's team of researchers on their Sea of Cortez expedition, a groundbreaking initiative to adapt cutting edge aerial technology for the purpose of whale research and conservation.

As the casual and professional use of drones increases, the marine sanctuary is just one of the places where concerns are being raised about whether the unmanned devices are hurting ocean wildlife – and whether new regulations or better education and enforcement of existing laws are needed.

Regulations against disturbing wildlife “apply whether you’re in a kayak, flying a drone, in a helicopter – it doesn’t really matter,” said Scott Kathey, the sanctuary’s federal regulatory coordinator.
Enforcement officers haven’t issued fines yet, he said, but have given several written warnings.

Those warnings are because drones – or any noisy or strange disturbance – could stress animals to the point that they might not be able to feed or rest and could scare them into stampeding away in a panic, abandoning or injuring their young.

A 2015 study from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed that pinnipeds – seals, sea lions and walruses – are more sensitive to drone activity at low altitudes than cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins and porpoises.
However, even whales notice them, according to marine biologist Alicia Amerson, who has heard accounts of whales flipping over and looking up at hovering drones.
The NOAA study’s lead author, Courtney Smith, said new science has been published since the report came out, but “many data gaps remain” on how marine mammals respond to these noise disturbances.

Discovery Channel using drones to film “Shark Week” off the coast of northern Florida.

(Charles Ommanney for the Washington Post)

While efforts to understand more specifics are continuing, so are those to educate drone users – both about negative effects and about the rules that are in place.
Amerson, who is based in California, started a new initiative, AliMoSphere, earlier this year to develop best practice guidelines for using drones to study marine wildlife.
The group also conducts training sessions for anyone interested, at $20 per attendee.
She says sessions will be held throughout the winter on the West Coast as gray whales migrate south.

“Drones allow us to see things from different perspectives and everyone wants to show their friends and family a great wildlife shot,” said Brian Taggart, the director of Oceans Unmanned, which promotes the safe operation of drones and other autonomous technologies to protect the marine environment.
Taggart says resource managers have reached out to the group with increasing reports of disturbances, which led it, too, to create an education campaign, ECO-Drone.
They’re also working on developing a certification course.

Humpback Whales Feeding in Pristine Alaskan Waters

Researchers and commercial operators generally know the rules, Kathey said, but the new wave of drone hobbyists often don’t, and it’s on them to learn them.
“When you enter the state of Nevada, there isn’t a sign saying these are the rules of the road in Nevada.
If you’re entering the state, it’s your responsibility,” he said.
In the sanctuary, drones and any motorized aircraft are banned in four areas, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also has its own more general restrictions.
The sanctuary’s education strategy involves making sure all the rules are easily accessible and advertised, because placing signs every 20ft (6m) along the beach isn’t exactly practical, he said.

In many places, however, it may be unclear who is in charge or where to go to find more information, and so reaching hobbyists earlier might be better.
Kathey said the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to the north of the Monterey Bay sanctuary has been working with manufacturers on putting messaging on packaging and that there have been discussions about developing geofencing – basically digital borders – that would automatically notify drone users of local regulations within a specific area.

Drones and similar new technologies, meanwhile, have opened the door to myriad new research opportunities.
For scientists, who often will get permits to study protected wildlife, the problem is an old one: how to get close, now with a flying whirring device, without disrupting animals and how to observe without influencing animal behavior.

For example, Amerson flew drones about 130ft (40m) above humpback and right whales off Australia the past two summers to learn about their body conditions and prey availability.
The mothers don’t eat in the reproductive area off Australia, so by taking photos with drones she and her colleagues could try to track, essentially, how fast the mom is shrinking compared to how quickly their baby is fattening up.

Scientists, too, are learning best practices.
“One of the big challenges with this emerging technology is that each class and type of drone presents a different visual and acoustic profile, and each species of concern reacts differently to those factors,” Taggart said.
Collecting data on the disturbances, he said, needs to be a part of using drones in research.

In 2016, Institute of Marine Research (IMR) used a drone to count seals in southern Norway.

For example, Oceans Unmanned is using both fixed-wing and quad drones to count a gray seal population in New England this winter.
“It’s best to start high and work lower,” Taggart said, watching for any signs the animals feel harassed or disturbed.
“Every flight helps our understanding of any negative effects.”

NOAA says it is working closely with the marine mammal research community to create formal guidance and best practices for drone operators, which it expects to issue in 2018.
It is aiming to reconcile the FAA’s rule requiring drones to stay below 400ft (120m) with its own rules requiring any aircraft, including drones, to not fly lower than 1,500ft (460m) in sensitive areas.

Drone regulations could help prevent wildlife harassment, Taggart said, but so too could improving technologies, including the cameras themselves.
With better cameras, drone operators may not need to get so close to wildlife in the first place.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog :  What drones and other new technologies ...

Mexico creates vast new ocean reserve to protect 'Galapagos of North America'

From The Guardian by Mattha Busby

Fishing, mining and new hotels will be prohibited in the ‘biologically spectacular’ Revillagigedo archipelago

Mexico’s government has created the largest ocean reserve in North America around a Pacific archipelago regarded as its crown jewel.
The measures will help ensure the conservation of marine creatures including whales, giant rays and turtles.

The protection zone spans 57,000 sq miles (150,000 sq km) around the Revillagigedo islands, which lie 242 miles (390 km) south-west of the Baja California peninsula.

Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, announced the decision in a decree that also bans mining and the construction of new hotels on the islands.
He said on Saturday that the decree reaffirmed the country’s “commitment to the preservation of the heritage of Mexico and the world”.

The four volcanic islands that make up the Revillagigedo archipelago, called the Galapagos of North America, are part of a submerged volcanic mountain range.
The surrounding waters, east of Hawaii, are home to hundreds of species of animals and plants, including rays, humpback whales, sea turtles, lizards and migratory birds.

  The Revillagigedo islands are home to almost 400 fish species,
including bluefin trevally and leather bass.
courtesy of gob.mx

The local ecosystem is central to the lives of some 400 species of fish, sharks and ray that depend on the nutrients drawn up by the ocean.
The area is a breeding ground for commercially fished species such as tuna and sierra.
However, the various fish populations had suffered, unable to reproduce fast enough for the rate at which they were fished.

 Revillagigedo islands with the GeoGarage platform (NGA chart)

The creation of a marine reserve is expected to help them to recover, as all fishing activities will now be prohibited.
This will be policed by the Mexican navy.

The news has been praised by WWF, the conservation organisation.

Mario Gómez, executive director of Beta Diversidad, a Mexican environment charity that has supported the reserve’s creation, also welcomed the move.
“We are proud of the protection we will provide to marine life in this area, and for the preservation of this important centre of connectivity of species migrating throughout the Pacific,” Gómez said.

Matt Rand, director of the Pew Bertarelli ocean legacy project, told HuffPost that the reserve was “biologically spectacular” and commended the Mexican government.
“It wasn’t an easy decision because they had significant opposition from the commercial fishing industry, which I think is unfortunate,” Rand said.
“I would love to see a commercial industry embrace this notion that certain areas should be protected.”

The United Nations convention on biological diversity aims to protect 10% of the world’s oceans by 2020.
However, some experts argue that protecting 30% of the world’s oceans from exploitation and harm would be a more appropriate goal in the drive for a more sustainable planet.
Just 6% of the global ocean has been set aside as marine protected areas or been earmarked for future protection.

Mexico joins Chile, New Zealand and Tahiti in taking recent steps to preserve the ecological systems in their territorial waters.
Conversely, President Trump is considering shrinking two marine national monuments in the Pacific: Rose Atoll and the Pacific Remote Islands.
These would be opened to commercial fishing, along with the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, off the coast of New England, the Washington Post has reported.

Links :

• BBC : Mexico creates huge national park to protect marine life 
• Smithsonian : Mexico Establishes Largest Marine Protected Area in North America
• Planeta : Parque Nacional Revillagigedo 
• The Inertia : Mexico Just Created the Largest Ocean Reserve in North America
• GeoGarage blog : The race for vast remote ‘marine protected areas’ may be a diversion /
   

Lisbon sailing

Some epic footage filmed off the coast of Portugal and hitting a staggering 33.2 knots in rough seas, Alex Thomson was really sending it!