Fish4Data

Pilot project on recording bycatch in the gillnet fishery on the German Baltic Sea coast

The goal of the Fish4Data project is to test and adapt an AI-supported monitoring system for bycatch in the gillnet fishery on the German Baltic Sea coast, in order to record bycatch of harbour porpoises and seabirds more objectively and with broader coverage.

Within the project, video-camera-based monitoring systems are tested and further developed under the conditions of German fishing vessels. For this purpose, electronic monitoring systems with cameras (Remote Electronic Monitoring, REM) are installed on around ten fishing vessels and automatically document the fishing operations. Based on the collected data, AI-supported analysis methods for the automatic detection and classification of bycatch and for recording fishing effort are developed and tested. This is intended to significantly reduce the effort required for the systematic recording of bycatch.

The project combines fisheries research, marine data science, and practice partners from fishing and nature conservation. In the long term, the system is to be transferred into permanent monitoring, making an important contribution to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly Baltic Sea fishery.