We are developing a new technology named ‘Right Time, Right Place’ to improve efficiency, sustainability, and profitability in the commercial fishing industry.
Right Time Right Place
Right Time Right Place is about using the data that fishers collect to help them make better decisions about their fishing: to help them catch more of what they want to catch, and less of what they want to avoid. It’s about less Fuel, less bycatch, and more fish.
Fishers are already collecting a range of data as part of their statutory reporting. With electronic reporting, this information is available from vessels across the fleet right away. Right Time Right Place helps fishers get operational value out of this data, so it can be used to help make decisions about their fishing.
Fisheries dashboards
As a first step, Dragonfly works with groups of fishers to encourage them to share data, through dashboards. This allows them to see up to date information on how catch rates are varying across their fishery. In the pāua industry, for example, Dragonfly has been running dashboards for over a decade. These allow pāua fishers to see that there is no point travelling to areas that have already been fished during the season. It is a simple optimisation that saves them travel time and cost. The industry is also able to agree on catch limits within small areas, encouraging catch spreading and preventing everyone from going to the same place.
In Foveaux Strait, Dragonfly is working with the oyster fishers so that they can monitor catch rates through the season. The industry is also collecting data on oyster quality, and monitoring for mortality. Having this information available will allow them to make prompt decisions about where to fish, and on whether any areas need resting.
Forecasting for fisheries
Right Time Right Place will use the fisheries data together with oceanographic and other information to forecast the distribution of fish species. Looking for fish can be very expensive, and it makes sense to make use of the wealth of information collected by fishers to reduce the searching time. There are also sustainability and direct financial benefits in avoiding catching fish that fishers don’t want to catch (such as species with high deemed values).
We have carried out a proof of concept in the jack mackerel fishery on the North Island west coast. In this fishery, kingfish is caught as bycatch. We showed that we could forecast the distribution of jack mackerel and kingfish with enough skill to be useful to the fishers.
We are currently seeking funding from the Primary Growth Fund to develop the Right Time Right Place system further, with a broad ambition of improving the profitability and sustainability of New Zealand fisheries.
Project team
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For fisheries to be resilient and profitable, fisheries management must become more dynamic.
With climate change, the ocean is rapidly becoming less predictable. There is a need to reimagine the agility of our approach to fisheries management—and we hope that Right Time Right Place will be part of the solution to this problem.
If we knew that a squid season was set to be quieter in a given year, fishers might reassess their planning. When is the optimal time to head to sea? Do we stay for a shorter time period? Could these resources be reallocated towards a species having a better season?
Philipp Neubauer
Director Marine
Dragonfly Data Science .