
New analysis shows where fish transfers that can obscure illegal catches happen - draenei
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-closes-in-on-big-scale-fish-poachers-in-the-wild-wet/
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trhway
> The resulting map shows where transshipping mostcommonly takes place: Nearly
> 40 percent of all encounters occurred within 200 nautical miles of Russia’s
> northern coastline,

yes, this is how Russian/USSR sea fishing industry has been organized for
decades - a group of smaller fishing vessels around a large fish processing
factory ship (similar to US aircraft carrier groups :). Russian illegal
fishing is organized differently though - in particular it is usually smaller
operations not involving transshipping.

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wool_gather
It's also right next to Japan. And the Japanese fishing industry is not
exactly known as an exemplar of sustainable practices.

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larkeith
> The group behind this work tracked fishing craft worldwide using global,
> publicly available data from systems vessels employ to communicate their
> locations with one another. Whereas the data has its limitations—it only
> tracks craft of a certain size, and boats can turn off their communications

Are the systems the article is referring to AIS transponders [1]? If so, we
should probably use caution in cracking down on transshipping of illegal
catches - incentivizing vessels to turn off their transponders may pose safety
risks.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_Syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System)

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darkerside
It's hard to say they deserve what they get if they choose to go dark to
support their illegal fishing activities, but... they sure do deserve it at
least a _little_ bit more. Failing to use this data because of the fear they
might take steps to hide it, and thereby self endanger, is 1) an appeal to
possibility, and 2) an inappropriate casting of blame if it does happen.

~~~
larkeith
Unfortunately, ships that disable their transponder pose risks not only to
themselves, but also others - especially smaller vessels, which may not have
transponders of their own.

However, I agree that this data is valuable and should probably be used; I
merely espouse caution in how we apply it, as there may be ways to use it
without posing undue danger for fishermen, or alternate lower risk data
sources (such as the satellite analysis mentioned in the article). There is
relatively little cost in putting together a risk analysis prior to
implementing any policies or law enforcement strategies from these analyses.

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salawat
I have mixed feelings on this.

On the one hand, I feel there is some fear mongering in it. The equating of
transshipping with standing in a dark alley waiting for someone to conduct an
illegal transaction is disingenuous. It is what it is.

The concept of International waters recognizes that there is no one claimant
with authority over the high seas. It isn't a case of a lack of political
will. It's that any overt political will by one actor alone would be perceived
as aggression by other major nations. International cooperation is essential
difficult to build, and easy to have fall apart with the ebb and flow of
popular sentiment.

Trying to reason from satellite and AIS data alone only illustrates
operational patterns. Not whether the operation going on at the time is
illegal or not unless the illegality is provable by geographic presence alone.

Anything that incentivizes non-participation in broadcasting a navigational
aid is more than "appeal to possibility". It is a certainty that someone will
eventually end up smacking into a shit running dark. It"s just like the Big
Sky Fallacy. Yes there is a lot of sea out there, but there are a lot of
vessels as well.

This is good exploratory work, but I would look at getting boots on the ground
in terms of joining up with fishing crews to weed out illegal fishing behavior
before doing anything drastic that may jeopardize the integrity of an
incredibly valuable navigational aid.

~~~
logfromblammo
This is just showing the areas on the map where the dark alleys might be,
because that's also where all the streets and boulevards are.

Red spots are where two AIS transponders got close enough for a transfer
between their vessels. Black spots are where one AIS transponder slowed or
stopped long enough for a transfer with a non-transponder vessel.

A lot of the spots can be explained by completely legitimate floating factory
ships, or cargo-ferrying vessels that bring the fish back to port while the
fishing boats stay where the fish are.

You would need a second data set, containing known-legitimate transfers, to
filter out results from the first. As it is now, it's just a map of where
fishing activity typically happens. Of course there will be shady transactions
somewhere in there, using the massive amount of above-board activity as cover.
It's about as useful as saying that one of the fast-food employees at a
gigantic food court might also be selling marijuana.

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Bedon292
This could be useful in conjunction with some of the work the AP and Digital
Globe did where they were looking for human trafficking related to these
practices. [http://explore.digitalglobe.com/see-
freedom](http://explore.digitalglobe.com/see-freedom) Where this gives them a
better idea where to point the satellites.

