Oral Presentation Australian Society for Fish Biology Conference 2024

Applications of AIML for catch detection in the Australian sub-Antarctic fisheries (111365)

Geoff Tuck 1 , Richard Little 1 , Dadong Wang 2 , Saqib Muhammad 3 , Rizwan Khokher 2 , Xinlong Guan 4 , Xin Yuan 2 , Jingyu Zhang 4 , Candice Untiedt 1 , Cara Masere 5
  1. CSIRO, Sustainable Marine Futures, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
  2. CSIRO, Data 61, Marsfield, NSW, Tasmania
  3. CSIRO, NCMI, Marsfield, NSW, Australia
  4. CSIRO, Data 61, Eveleigh, NSW, Australia
  5. AAD, Fisheries, Kingston, Tasmania, Australia

Fisheries worldwide are increasingly adopting on-vessel cameras, electronic monitoring (EM), for catch recording. AI-driven analysis of EM data offers the potential to improve data quality by providing accurate counts of target and non-target species for species-specific assessments. This presentation will share initial results and discuss challenges from a new project applying AI to EM in Australia's sub-Antarctic fisheries that target Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), including those around Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) and Macquarie Island. The HIMI fishery is a Marine Stewardship Council certified longline fishery that also incidentally catches grenadiers (Macrouridae), deepwater skates (Bathyraja spp.), and to a lesser degree, morid cods (Antimora rostrata). The goal is to test AI’s feasibility in delivering accurate counts and measurements of both target and non-target species, with new technologies enabling near real-time catch analysis. Automated species identification using AI could significantly reduce costs for industry and regulatory agencies while enhancing fishery monitoring coverage.