Fish and microchips: how AI can help Europe's fishers and protect the seas

euronews (in English)

An EU-backed project aims to deploy catch scanners using AI on fishing boats to identify fish species, size, and weight. The aim is to help fishers comply with strict regulations and protect stocks.

Transcript

00:00Bjørtsford is a remote fishing village on Norway's northernmost coast, far beyond the

00:07Arctic Circle.

00:08Though home to just a couple of thousand residents, it's a vital local hub for the fishing industry.

00:14This vessel sets out to seize a brief window between two Arctic storms for a chance of

00:19finding a good catch in these cold, unpredictable waters.

00:24It can be tough. It can be tough, especially in the autumn and winters. The weather is

00:29very unpredictable, very cold. Of course, of course, it can be very bumpy. We work when

00:35it's fish to catch, so it doesn't matter what time of the day it is. Day or night, it's

00:40all the same to us.

00:46This fishing vessel uses a large net to catch massive amounts of fish at once. A good day

00:52could bring in 30 tons of catch. Cod makes the most money, but the nets pull up a mix

00:57of fish species. Unwanted fish can't just be thrown back into the sea. Each of the species

01:04needs to be weighed and logged separately. Inspections can happen any time, and any mistakes

01:09in catch reporting could have serious consequences, including big fines and reduced quota.

01:15The fishing industry in Norway is strictly regulated, so it's very important for us to

01:22have the exact number of what we catch so we can report it to the government. If we

01:27make a mistake, in the worst case scenario, they will take the whole catch away from us.

01:31So that means that all the work we've done catching the fishes is wasted.

01:36But how do you weigh tons of different fish quickly and accurately? Usually, fishers estimate

01:43the total weight by counting containers filled with the fish. But this vessel has a new device

01:48designed to make catch counting easier and more precise. Still in development, the catch

01:53scanner uses AI to identify fish species' size and weight as they move along the conveyor

01:59belt. The aim is to make the process as automatic as possible.

02:04New digital tools on fishing vessels can do much more than just count the catches. Europe

02:10is stepping up its fight against illegal fishing, both at home and around the world. In the

02:16next few years, this will lead to major technological innovations in fishery monitoring, control

02:22and surveillance. Under-reporting of catches can lead to overfishing, harming fish stocks

02:28and ecosystems. The catch scanner is part of Every Fish, a European project developing

02:33smart catch recording tools. It's led by Rachel Tiller, Chief Scientist at Sintef Ocean in Trondheim.

02:41We need to know what's going on out there so that we can solve all of these different

02:46crises. So the climate crisis, biodiversity crisis, we need to have more knowledge about

02:52the ocean. We're looking at a number of different developments in camera technology and machine

02:57vision, artificial intelligence, trying to come up with solutions to put on fishing vessels,

03:02sensors that can help us to automatically record all the fish that come out of the sea.

03:10There are many engineering challenges ahead. For catch scanners to be truly useful, they

03:14must be highly reliable and accurate. Fishers, controllers and scientists need to trust the

03:19data produced by AI on board. To meet this goal, Every Fish researchers have developed

03:28open source AI methods to identify fish species and estimate weights. The engineers work closely

03:34with fishers to ensure their solutions meet real world needs and perform well on rocking

03:39boats in cold, salty seas. It's really important to get the feedback from the industry, from

03:46the vessels, to be able to shape what we are working with here at the lab. If we don't

03:50have that kind of feedback, then we might just go in the wrong direction. To count catches

03:56on smaller boats, researchers are developing computer vision systems that can identify

04:01and measure individual fish in a pile. This could allow artisan and hobby fishers to scan

04:07their catches using CCTV cameras or even smart phones. The same technology could even guide

04:12robotic arms to sort out and handle the catch, taking over some of the hardest manual tasks.

04:21There's a lot of hard labour in the fishing industry in general, so it's hard on the shoulders,

04:24hard on the back, you have to stay leaned over a table, you have to work with the fish.

04:29What you can do is you can perhaps automate some of these processes with robotic arms,

04:34and a clue to doing so is to have good vision systems that are able to parse and understand

04:38the scenes that they're looking at. Onboard surveillance cameras are often used to combat

04:44illegal fishing and other violations. In places like the Seychelles, monitoring officers regularly

04:50review onboard footage to ensure fishers follow the rules. In Europe, video surveillance will

04:55have to comply with strict privacy and data protection laws.

05:02Many fishers are already really sceptical of the system of having some kind of camera

05:07onboard their vessel, and it's absolutely understandable. I would be sceptical as well

05:11if my boss wanted to install a camera in my office. So we are developing systems that

05:17will automatically blur out identifiable elements of humans, so we can comply with GDPR regulations

05:25and also with a sense of personal space. The EU will require surveillance cameras on

05:31high-risk vessels, as well as satellite tracking systems on all fishing boats. These tools

05:36help European Fisheries Control Agency officers in Vigo and Spain monitor fishing and coordinate

05:41inspections. The signal is going to satellite, later down to our systems, and what we have

05:49we can see on the screen. Here we have our vessels, here we have fishing vessels, so

05:54we can count time, how much we needed to get in position. With more fishing vessels getting

06:02equipped with trackers, control centres will have much more data to process. Computer algorithms

06:07can help sift through it all and flag anything suspicious. We have also some automatic tools

06:13that can perform some analysis, for example related with the closed area or the fisheries

06:18restricted areas we have, for example, in the Mediterranean Sea. One of these areas

06:23is the very well-known the Jacuba, Pomopitaria in the Adriatic Sea, where we have some algorithms

06:28defined in order to raise some alerts or some warnings in case of a vessel accessing this

06:35area with certain speed, which could be associated to a potential fishing activity. While digital

06:42tools like cameras and AI are valuable additions to fishery monitoring, experts caution they

06:48have limitations and can sometimes fail. The EU's push for stricter oversight combines

06:53traditional inspections with these new technologies. The surge of digital data is meant to make

06:58fishing more sustainable and fair. I always call it a tsunami of data that will come in.

07:05We will have to look at how we work with that data, which technologies we can use to translate

07:11this data into usable and actionable outputs. We can for that use artificial intelligence,

07:20algorithms, automatic behaviour monitoring tools. All this is very nice, but at the end

07:26of the day, despite all this technology, you will still need the professional input from

07:31the fishery inspector. Digital technology can give fishers handy new tools so they can

07:38spend more time fishing and less time filling forms. It also helps scientists find new ways

07:44to protect the health of our oceans, while making it easier for fishery controllers to

07:48ensure there's plenty of fish in the sea for years to come.

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