Overfishing has been a problem for ages, but oceans are big and it's not as if the authorities can track where every boat drops its nets -- At least, until now, thanks to Google, SkyTruth and Oceana.
Culling data from AIS - the automatic identification system that boats are required to broadcast so that they don't get lost - the trio can overlay that imagery with satellite maps to show if any boat is operating in a prohibited zone, and switching off a vessel's AIS is cause enough to be hauled in by the authorities.
Maybe this will be the inspiration for a whole new series called Law and Order: Environmental Crimes Unit, and known overfisher and Soylent News user TheMightyBuzzard will finally receive the keel-hauling he deserves.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by dlb on Sunday November 16 2014, @11:18PM
Global Fishing Watch is the product of a technology partnership between SkyTruth, Oceana, and Google that is designed to show all of the trackable fishing activity in the ocean. This interactive web tool – currently in prototype stage – is being built to enable anyone to visualize the global fishing fleet in space and time. Global Fishing Watch will reveal the intensity of fishing effort around the world, one of the stressors contributing to the precipitous decline of our fisheries.
The linked-to article gives a little blurb from SkyTruth, Oceana and Google Earth Outreach. As time passes, I'm leery of Google's tentacles reaching into so many facets of our everyday lives, and so I find myself torn here. Google Earth Outreach's mission is to give
nonprofits and public benefit organizations the knowledge and resources they need to visualize their cause and tell their story in Google Earth & Maps to hundreds of millions of people.
Sounds noble. But in the process Google is slurping up all that additional data fed to them by those "nonprofits and public benefit organizations" who use their services. Do no evil. I'd rather not take Google's word for it.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 16 2014, @11:35PM
Don't you have to catch something more often than not to be overfishing? I'm an avid fisherman, not a good one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday November 16 2014, @11:54PM
That's the same thing the big guys say when they shrug their shoulders after being caught with a live well the size of a cargo hold and full of whale corpses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2014, @07:19AM
it's "fooshing" you insensitive clod!