Most large fishing boats go untracked as 'dark vessels'

The majority of the world's industrial fishing vessels are not publicly trackedThree-quarters of the world's large fishing boats and a quarter of transport and energy ships are "dark vessels" that do not publicly share their location. The finding comes from an analysis of satellite images using artificial intelligence – an approach that could help better track human activities impacting the oceans. "We had an idea that we were missing a big chunk of the activity happening in the ocean but we didn't know how much," says Fernando Paolo at Global Fishing Watch, a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC. "And we found that it's a lot more than we imagined." Paolo and his colleagues used satellite images – including radar images that can reveal objects regardless of clouds or darkness – taken between 2017 and 2021 and covering coastal regions where most large-scale fishing and other industrial activities take place.