Do you know the story behind the National Day Seafood Feast?

Did you enjoy the seafood feast on October 1st?

The happy National Day holiday is about to pass. Have you enjoyed a seafood feast? A sumptuous seafood feast always brings us a sense of satisfaction. However, have you ever thought about what it would be like if one day we could no longer taste delicious seafood?

In fact, behind our ability to enjoy marine delicacies year after year are the efforts of some people to combat illegal fishing, a behavior that seriously damages the fishery ecology, affects fishery production, and hinders the sustainable development of capture fisheries.

Pictured: Fisheries observers track fish caught on fishing vessels.

Photo credit: Mary Catherine O'Connor.

According to statistics from the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, fisheries losses due to illegal fishing are about $1.5 billion each year. In order to avoid these huge losses, fishery observers need to work almost 24/7. They cruise the Pacific Ocean on a fishing boat hundreds of miles from the coastline. Even though the work is so hard, there is no rich reward, especially when observers have to track the source of seafood caught by fishing boats, they not only have to be disgusted by fishermen, but also encounter obstacles brought to them by fishermen. This source tracking is mainly used for bycatch to avoid possible illegal fishing.

So is there any way to solve or improve this problem?

The relevant people thought of deploying artificial intelligence seafarers to combat illegal fishing. But what is the reason behind this?

It is estimated that about 20% of the world's seafood products come from illegal fishing. These illegal activities mainly occur in licensed fishing vessels, not unlicensed fishing vessels as we imagine.

Therefore, experts from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) are actively promoting the use of AI-equipped video monitors on commercial fishing vessels. The software used in the monitors has machine learning capabilities and can quickly determine the species of each fish based on its size, shape and color. Fishery regulators can also rely on monitors and corresponding software systems to inspect fishing vessels to determine whether their fishing process is legal. This is a new artificial intelligence (AI) monitoring system , which can be regarded as a "face recognition system" for fish . This system can help fishery observers in their work, help maintain the population of fish and maintain the balance of the entire marine ecology. And it also allows people to gradually free themselves from the heavy and hard work of fishery observers.