Pelagic Data Systems Archives

Dock to Dish Prepares New Seafood-Tracking System

February 8, 2018 — It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your shipments of iced-down, black sea bass are? Or perhaps you want to check on the status of the longline boat that is catching your carton of golden tilefish from the 500-foot depths of the Hudson Canyon, located about 80 miles south of Montauk? For those who demand the freshest, most sustainable seafood, and partake in the increasingly popular and expanding Montauk-headquartered Dock to Dish community-supported fishery program, keeping an eye on your seafood order is a simple mouse click away.

“More and more people want to know where, when, and how their fish are caught,” explained Sean Barrett, a fisherman and restaurateur who founded the cooperative fishery program in 2012. “Our motto is ‘know your fisherman’ and that has not changed. Members of Dock to Dish can check in real time the status of their catch from the beginning of the fishing trip all the way until it is delivered by hand right to their doorstep. It’s just one of the many enhancements we have made since we started.”

This year Mr. Barrett hopes to improve the fishery marketplace by having the world’s first live tracking dashboard so that end consumers on land can monitor hauls of wild seafood from individual fishermen at sea in near-real time. Named Dock to Dish 2.0, the new technology bundle was created in partnership with several fish tracking companies, including Pelagic Data Systems, Local Catch, and Fish Trax. Once completed, the bundle will be open-sourced, meaning it can be replicated and used by all independent small and medium-scale fisheries operations around the world.

“Dock to Dish 2.0 is the first public-facing system to ever combine vessel and vehicle tracking with geospatial monitoring technologies on an interactive digital dashboard,” Mr. Barrett explained last month as he unloaded a catch of tilefish just outside the kitchen door of Nick and Toni’s, one of the first members of Dock to Dish’s restaurant-supported fisheries program. Fishing boats will be outfitted with solar-powered automatic data-collection monitors and application-specific wireless sensors.

Read the full story at the East Hampton Star

Pelagic Data Systems honored as SeaWeb Seafood Champion Finalist; FISH-i Africa Wins Innovation Award

June 6, 2017 — The following was released by Pelagic Data Systems:

Pelagic Data Systems (PDS) was honored as a finalist at the Seafood Champion Awards, held yesterday at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle. FISH-i Africa, a partnership of eight East African nations, was presented with the Seafood Champion Award for Innovation for their low-cost information-sharing solution to combat illegal fishing in the Western Indian Ocean.

“It is an honor to be recognized as a finalist among such innovative and forward-thinking organizations and individuals,” said PDS Chief Scientific Officer Melissa Garren. “Pelagic Data Systems thanks Mark Spalding and the entire SeaWeb team for bringing together such a passionate group of people united by a common goal of seafood sustainability. We’d also like to offer our congratulations to FISH-i Africa on their victory and their exemplary, collaborative work fighting illegal fishing.”

FISH-i Africa was established in 2012 when eight East African nations – Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia and Tanzania – united with the goal of halting large-scale illegal fishing. By bringing together national enforcement authorities, as well as technical and legal experts, FISH-i Africa is proving that regional cooperation and information-sharing can be powerful tools to stop illegal catch from getting to market.

This is the 11^th year that SeaWeb has presented Seafood Champion Awards at its annual Seafood Summit. The Seafood Champion Awards program features four categories – Innovation, Vision, Leadership, and Advocacy – with four finalists in each category. The awards were created to honor organizations and individuals that promote environmentally sustainable seafood.

The Seafood Champion Award for Innovation recognizes those who identify and apply new solutions to ecological challenges, market needs, or sustainability barriers. In addition to PDS and FISH-i Africa, finalists included Karl Warr of Better Fishing, who has improved the sustainability of bottom trawling with a new cage mechanism, and Alan Lovewell of Real Good Fish, a California-based community-supported fishery (CSF).

PDS recently formed a partnership with Mr. Lovewell to outfit fishing boats working in his CSF with PDS’s vessel tracking technology. PDS’s technology provides Real Good Fish subscribers with a detailed look at where, when, and how their fish was caught.

About Pelagic Data Systems

Pelagic Data Systems (PDS) is the creator of ultra-lightweight vessel tracking systems for boats of all sizes. PDS’s innovative vessel tracking system is completely solar-powered and affordable, and helps fishers and regulators alike collect the fishing data that they value most. PDS is active in Southeast Asia, Africa, and throughout the Americas where its technology is being used to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and help fishers maintain their livelihoods.

Global Ghost Gear Initiative welcomes Pelagic Data Systems (PDS) as new member

June 2, 2017 — The following was released today by the Global Ghost Gear Initiative and Pelagic Data Systems:

Pelagic Data Systems (PDS) has joined the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI) as a new member. GGGI and PDS, both finalists for the 2017 SeaWeb Seafood Champion Awards, will team up to align approaches and collaborate on projects to reduce ghost fishing gear and remove it from the world’s oceans.

Pelagic Data Systems deploys ultra-lightweight, solar-powered vessel tracking systems to help fishers and regulators collect valuable fishing data for boats of all sizes. PDS works extensively in Southeast Asia, Africa, and throughout the Americas, where its technology is used to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

As a participant in the GGGI, PDS will bring valuable field experience from fisheries in Indonesia and the Pacific, which will inform and support efforts by the GGGI to address ghost fishing in upcoming projects in those regions. Their technical experience will be invaluable in the current development of projects focused on the marking and tracking of fishing gear to enable gear recovery and reduce gear discards.

“We look forward to working together with the committed and talented array of GGGI members to develop creative solutions that support healthy fisheries and fishing communities, and reduce the detrimental impacts of ghost gear,” said Melissa Garren, Chief Scientific Officer at PDS.

Launched by World Animal Protection in 2015, the GGGI is a cross-sectoral alliance committed to driving solutions to the problem of lost and abandoned fishing gear, known as ghost gear, worldwide. GGGI members collaborate to improve the health of marine ecosystems, protect marine animals, and safeguard human health and livelihoods. IUU fishing, which PDS works to combat, has been shown to contribute to the accumulation of ghost gear in the world’s oceans.

“We are so excited to have Pelagic Data Systems, with its innovativeness and technological leadership, join the Global Ghost Gear Initiative,” says Elizabeth Hogan of World Animal Protection and the GGGI. “The unique expertise they bring will augment the GGGI’s global efforts to mark and track lost fishing gear.”

Ghost gear is fishing equipment which has been abandoned or lost and is now causing harm to fisheries and ocean ecosystems. Each year, an estimated 640,000 tons of fishing gear is lost or abandoned in oceans, estuaries, and bays. Whether intentionally discarded or accidentally lost, this gear persists for hundreds of years, and it catches and wastes targeted marine species, entangles marine wildlife, adds to ocean waste, and presents additional expenses and hazards for fishers and marine communities.

PDS was founded in San Francisco in 2014 with the goal of increasing transparency and traceability in the global seafood supply chain. Its vessel tracking system, roughly the size of a typical smartphone, records a vessel’s location multiple times per minute, and automatically and securely transmits stored data within network range. Using this data, fishers and regulators can track vessel and fleet fishing activity, confirming the legality and location of catch and the type of gear that was used.

To learn more about the GGGI, visit www.ghostgear.org

To learn more about PDS, visit www.pelagicdata.com/

About Pelagic Data Systems:

Pelagic Data Systems (PDS) is the creator of ultra-lightweight vessel tracking systems for boats of all sizes. PDS’s innovative vessel tracking system is completely solar-powered and affordable, and helps fishers and regulators alike collect the fishing data that they value most. PDS is active in Southeast Asia, Africa, and throughout the Americas where its technology is being used to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and help fishers maintain their livelihoods.

About the Global Ghost Gear Initiative:

Founded in 2015 by World Animal Protection, the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI) is a cross-sectoral alliance committed to driving solutions to the problem of lost and abandoned fishing gear (ghost gear) worldwide. The GGGI aims to improve the health of marine ecosystems, protect marine animals, and safeguard human health and livelihoods. Members include TriMarine, Sainsbury’s, Young’s Seafood, Northern Prawn Fisheries, and the International Pole and Line Foundation.

Pelagic Data Systems teaming with Alan Lovewell, Real Good Fish to install vessel tracking systems in California

May 26, 2017 — A new partnership between Pelagic Data Systems and Alan Lovewell’s Real Good Fish will place vessel tracking systems onboard commercial fishing boats in California.

Pelagic Data Systems makes lightweight, solar-powered vessel tracking technology. Real Good Fish is a community supported fishery that makes weekly deliveries of locally caught seafood to about 1,500 shareholders in the Monterey and San Francisco Bay areas. The partnership will provide Real Good Fish’s members detailed information about where, when and how their seafood – including black cod, dungeness crab, king salmon, lingcod, rockfish, and sanddabs – was caught, via a weekly email newsletter.

“From fishermen to seafood lovers, we’re working together to explore the intersection of seafood and technology in the interest of solving some of the toughest problems that face our oceans and plates,” Lovewell, who founded Real Good Fish in 2012, said. “I would like to see how this technology helps our fishermen and consumers work more closely together to provide a more enriching, empowering, and collaborative experience for our community.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US importer launches Indonesian crab traceability tool

March 21, 2017 — Miami, US-based blue swimming crab firm Blue Star Foods has announced it is launching a cloud-based fisheries data collection platform for a fishery in Indonesia.

The mobile-based iniative is being undertaken in partnership with Wilderness Markets. It integrates three components in an effort to provide a completely traceable supply chain.

A geospatial boat tracking system provides “on the water” data for fishing duration, location and timing. Provided by Pelagic Data Systems, these units are “uniquely suited for artisanal vessel tracking”, it said.

A proprietary mobile phone-based system aggregates landings data and is linked to a QR code system, which allows buyers-consumers to trace back product information in an integrated platform.

The QR code provides users with batch and product information, including fisher data, vessel name and landing site in compliance with landing regulations.

Dave Solomon, CEO of Pelagic Data Systems, said: “we are excited to work with Blue Star to bring transparency with a positive social and environmental impact to their supply chain in Indonesia”.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Pelagic Data Systems Announced as SeaWeb Seafood Champion Finalist

BOSTON — March 20, 2017 — The following was released by Pelagic Data Systems:

Pelagic Data Systems (PDS) is one of four finalists for the 2017 Seafood Champion Award for Innovation, SeaWeb announced today. A panel of seafood sustainability experts from industry and nonprofit organizations based in Asia, Europe and North America recognized the organization for its vessel-tracking technology, based on an affordable, solar-powered data collection device for small vessels. The technology has helped combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Gabon, Mexico, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Peru, Philippines, Thailand and the U.S.

“We are incredibly honored to be a Seafood Champion finalist among such great and pioneering individuals and organizations,” said Dave Solomon, PDS CEO. “The innovation that has taken place in the seafood sector in recent years is truly heartening. We are pleased that SeaWeb is recognizing work on vital issues like seafood traceability and transparency.”

The annual Seafood Champion Awards program, now in its 11th year, recognizes individuals and organizations for excellence in promoting environmentally responsible seafood. There are 16 finalists in four categories. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 5 at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle.

“This year’s finalists have a global perspective, whether they act locally or at a broader level,” said Mark Spalding, president of SeaWeb and The Ocean Foundation. “Improving seafood’s sustainability requires addressing difficult political, technical, social and economic questions. To create change, you have to forge alliances and bring people together around a common cause. These are not easy things to do, but the Champions on this list have forged ahead and are making real progress.”

“As the expectation of transparency and traceability in the seafood supply chain grows, we are working to develop technologies that serve fishermen, regulators, and the environment, making management and smart business decisions easily accessible,” said Melissa Garren, PDS Chief Scientific Officer. “We continue to be inspired and motivated by the creativity and innovation in this sector.”

The Seafood Champion Award for Innovation recognizes those who identify and apply new solutions to ecological challenges, market needs or sustainability barriers. In addition to Pelagic Data Systems, the finalists are:

FISH-i Africa, a partnership of eight East African countries that combats large-scale illegal fishing by sharing information and taking collective enforcement action. FISH-i’s string of investigations and prosecutions has created a more responsible fisheries sector.
Alan Lovewell of the 1,200-member, community-supported fishery Real Good Fish. He also runs Bay2Tray, a program within Real Good Fish that brings affordable local fish to public school districts with high poverty rates and sends fishermen into classrooms to teach about the ocean, fishing and health.
Karl Warr of Better Fishing. He has improved the sustainability of bottom trawling with an easily fitted cage mechanism that can free 95 percent of juvenile fish, saving fuel costs and allowing fishers to catch species selectively.

The Seafood Champion Award for Leadership recognizes people and organizations that bring stakeholders together to improve seafood sustainability or ocean health. The finalists are:

Susi Pudjiastuti, Indonesia’s Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries since 2014. She has banned the use of bottom trawlers and other unsustainable catching devices; led the fight against IUU fishing in her geographically dispersed island nation; and fought against the use of forced labor on fishing vessels.
Wally Stevens of the Global Aquaculture Alliance. A widely admired leading light in aquaculture, he has developed the GAA as both a competitive force, with its Best Aquaculture Practices certification, and a precompetitive convener via the annual GOAL Conference, the Responsible Aquaculture Foundation, the Global Aquaculture Advocate and other initiatives.
Mariah Boyle of FishWise. Known for bridging divides to unite businesses, NGOs and governments in pursuit of common goals, she has led companies such as Albertsons, Target, Hy-Vee and Sea Delight to improve traceability and reduce the risk of IUU fishing and human rights abuses in their supply chains. Her efforts have positively affected more than 7,500 stores and 250 million pounds of seafood.
Sea Pact, an innovative alliance of nine leading North American seafood businesses. The organization uses its collective power to lead improvement throughout the global supply chain, funding projects to drive change while showcasing how competitors can work together.

The Seafood Champion Award for Vision recognizes distinctive visions that significantly advance the sustainable seafood community. The finalists are:

Bren Smith, who is leading the development and promotion of 3-D ocean farms. His nonprofit GreenWave helps fishers become ocean farmers by adopting GreenWave’s open-source, replicable model, which restores rather than depletes ocean ecosystems.
Matthew Beaudin, executive chef of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, who moved $1 million in buying power to seafood producers within a 90-mile radius. He also is a regional and cross-border leader, developing aquaponics programs to support orphaned, HIV-positive children in Mexico.
The Marine Research Foundation, a three-person nonprofit in Malaysia whose work protects endangered sea turtles while making Malaysia’s shrimp-fishing industry more sustainable. The MRF overcame entrenched opposition to the use of turtle excluder devices and now anticipates a full rollout of the devices, which will save an estimated 4,000 turtles. That will open access for Malaysia to a global market hungry for sustainable shrimp.
The Global Ghost Gear Initiative, the first effort to tackle the problem of abandoned fishing gear on a global scale. This international, cross-sector partnership works with stakeholders from fishers to the United Nations to collect data and develop and model solutions that remove ghost gear from the ocean.

The Seafood Champion Award for Advocacy recognizes the promotion of sustainability, use of the media to raise the profile of sustainable seafood, work to strengthen public policy and resource allocations, and championing of advances in sustainable seafood. The finalists are:

The International Pole & Line Foundation, which spearheaded an effort by Indian Ocean countries to reform tuna fisheries management and played a central role in the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission’s groundbreaking adoption of a precautionary harvest strategy.
Ned Bell, Ocean Wise executive chef at the Vancouver Aquarium and founder of Chefs for Oceans, who has made sustainable seafood his mission. In 2014, he rode his bike 8,700 km across Canada, hosting 20 events alongside some of the country’s best chefs to raise awareness of sustainable seafood.
Dr. Caleb Otto, former Permanent Representative of the Republic of Palau to the United Nations, who has led his small island nation to a position of leadership on the international stage through his passionate advocacy for ocean health and sustainability at the United Nations.
Bill Mook of Mook Sea Farm in Maine, who is modeling how shellfish growers everywhere can address the threat of ocean acidification. He has become a resource for hatchery and farm operators in the U.S. and abroad, counseling them on how to avoid losses and exchanging innovative ideas for protecting the industry.

For more information on the awards and finalists, go to www.seafoodchampions.org. For more information on the awards ceremony and the Seafood Summit, go to www.seafoodsummit.org.

Read the release at Marketwired

Satellite, cellular technology starting to catch up to IUU scofflaws

November 10, 2016 — Technological advancements in satellite and cellular technology are being brought to bear in the international fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, enabling greater levels of surveillance and policing in the vast – and previously mostly lawless – open ocean.

An article in Business Insider details the story of how the tiny island nation of Kiribati successfully used satellite imaging provided by Global Fishing Watch, a partnership between Google, Oceana and SkyTruth, to catch a commercial fishing vessel fishing illegally in a no-catch zone. Central Pacific Fishing Company, the owner of the vessel, Marshalls 203, was fined USD 2 million (EUR 1.8 million) as a result of the investigation.

Another group that is pushing the envelope when it comes to using tracking technology onboard fishing vessels is Pelagic Data Systems. The company, based in San Francisco, California, has developed a cellular vessel tracking system specifically designed for small-scale fisheries and small-boats, which compose as much as 95 percent of the world’s fishing fleet.

The smaller, solar-powered units that Pelagic Data Systems has designed are much cheaper than an AIS system, and have been successfully implemented on a variety of vessel sizes and types. The units record a geolocation every few seconds, stores it on the vessel after compressing and encrypting it, and uploads data when it comes into contact with a cellular network, according to PDS chief scientific officer Melissa Garren, who presented as part of the SeafoodSource webinar “Small vessels, big data: Silicon Valley takes up the fight against IUU fishing” on Thursday, 20 October.

“The challenge is to put all vessels on the map using a combination of all different sorts of technology,” Garren said. “Whatever it takes to improve fisheries management, the livelihood of fishermen, and the environmental sustainability of our marine resources.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New Fisheries Monitoring Technology to Take Center Stage at Seafood Source Webinar

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — October 19, 2016 — This Thursday, October 20, advances in low-cost small-scale fisheries monitoring will be showcased on Seafood Source’s monthly webinar series. Viewers will learn how emerging technology is significantly smaller and cheaper than traditional vessel monitoring systems, and is helping to lead the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. These new tools are also ensuring that small-scale and artisanal fishermen remain competitive as standards for seafood transparency increase.

“Small Vessels, BIG Data: Silicon Valley Takes Up the Fight Against IUU Fishing” will feature Pelagic Data Systems’ (PDS) CEO Dave Solomon and Chief Scientific Officer Melissa Garren, along with Jack Whalen of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and will be hosted by Seafood Source editor Cliff White. It will be held from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EST, and is free to view with registration at seafoodsource.com.

PDS is the developer of lightweight vessel tracking systems made specially for small vessels that are being used to fight IUU fishing, and the exploitation of global fish stocks. It has partnered with fishing and conservation groups to pilot its technology in Southeast Asia, as well as Latin America and West Africa. The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership is a non-profit that works to rebuild depleted fish stocks.

Technology such as the one developed by PDS provides monitoring for vessels that are otherwise unable to accommodate large and expensive traditional satellite-based monitoring systems. Such technology is growing in importance as regulations increasingly put a premium on transparency in the seafood supply chain. Just recently, the U.S. raised standards on imported seafood, making it more important than ever for fishermen to have cheap tracking tools to verify sustainable practices.

Using vessel-monitoring tools can also help small-scale and artisanal fishermen stay competitive as the demand for seafood transparency grows. Certifications for fairly traded and sustainably caught seafood can increase the price of catch, but require more comprehensive monitoring to achieve. New technologies allow fishermen to be proactive in demonstrating they are doing things the right way, without waiting for regulations to force their hand.

Today, 95 percent of the global fishing fleet consists of small-scale vessels, and most of these are invisible to data monitoring. This allows for IUU fishing, which hurts the vast majority of the fishing industry and steals profits from legitimate fishing businesses. Filling in the data gap for small-scale fisheries has the potential to benefit law-abiding fishermen while helping to rid the world of IUU fishing.

PT Bali Seafood International announces partnership with Pelagic Data Systems and Global Fishing Watch

September 15, 2o16 — The following was released by PT Bali Seafood:

WASHINGTON — A new pilot program, resulting from a partnership of PT Bali Seafood International (BSI), Pelagic Data Systems (PDS) and Global Fishing Watch, will install lightweight passive tracking devices on approximately 100 small artisanal fishing vessels to provide consumers with boat-to-port traceability of wild-caught seafood. A memorandum of understanding was executed by the parties in Jakarta in July, 2016, at The Economist Regional Ocean Summit, allowing for implementation to begin immediately. Bali Seafood has placed itself on the leading edge of seafood traceability by developing this partnership.

“Vessel location transparency for the global fishing fleet is a game changer. Global Fishing Watch makes it possible to understand catch locations and control harvest, cornerstones of sustainable fishing,” explained BSI President and founder Jerry Knecht. “Now that we are scaling the electronic tracking of the small boat fleet, we can begin to fill in the coastal vessel location and harvest picture, allowing for effective management at all levels of harvest.”

BSI and PDS completed a successful 20-boat pilot tracking Ahi tuna caught off Sumbawa in the Indonesian archipelago in 2015. This program addresses a data gap, as artisanal boats are not typically outfitted with the same tracking technology as the large-scale fishing fleet. Expanding monitoring beyond the initial pilot further improves transparency across the small-boat fishing fleets of the developing world.

By outfitting small vessels with the means to track product from boat-to-port, this program will help increase the value of the seafood harvested by participating small boat fishers, will provide robust data about fishing activity to inform sustainable management practices, and will demonstrate a novel, cost- effective transparency approach that can be scaled globally.

Global Fishing Watch, itself a partnership of Oceana, SkyTruth and Google, will publish the data, free and available to the public with the official launch of the platform today in Washington DC at the Our Ocean conference hosted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

“We’re excited to see Global Fishing Watch used as a positive market incentive, helping producers move toward greater transparency in their operations,” said Brian Sullivan, Google’s lead on the project.

“This collaboration takes us one step closer to ridding the world of illegal fishing,” said Dave Solomon, PDS’s CEO. “We are fortunate to be at a place where we have the technology, the partnerships and the momentum to make fishing activity as transparent as possible.”

Read the full release here