New Models, New Applications: Advances in Fisheries Electronic Monitoring

Kate Wing is the founder of Intertidal Agency, where she tackles design and strategy projects for conservation technology. She also serves on the Core Team of the Net Gains Alliance, which supports data modernization projects in U.S. fisheries. She served as The Nature Conservancy’s 2018 Ocean Data Fellow, hosted the first-ever San Francisco Fishackathon, used a NFWF grant to teach AI to identify fish, and regularly mentors ocean accelerator programs. She has a breadth of experience in the social sector, from managing a $20 million grant portfolio at the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation to running campaigns and serving as a U.S. Congressional fellow.

Dr Todd Gedamke founded MER Consultants in 2012 which has focused efforts on improving data collection, analyses, and providing advice to researchers and managers in data limited fisheries. Over the past four years, he has conducted analyses, taught training courses, and advised fishery researchers, NGO staff, government officials, and students in Belize, California, US Caribbean, Bahamas, Mexico, Belize, Indonesia, Bermuda, Myanmar, Philippines, and Cuba. Currently Dr. Gedamke is completing a large-scale multi-year project, where he designed and implemented the first comprehensive port sampling project to verify landings patterns for all species in Puerto Rico.

Dr. Bill Harford has 10 years of experience in fishery decision-support. Prior to founding Nature Analytics, he worked with the University of Miami and NOAA’s southeast fishery science center to develop solutions for data-limited fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and coastal Pacific regions.

Karl Warr, owner of Better Fishing, is a life-long commercial fisherman based in Napier, New Zealand. He runs a family business dedicated to traditional Kiwi values of hard work and giving back to his community. Karl takes pride in his work, finding and catching the highest quality fish for his customers. Karl has developed an innovative cod-end, designed to help reduce by-catch while improving the quality of the fish harvested, with dispensation for its use on his vessel from the New Zealand government. It is the first stage of a sorting device that helps release juvenile fish and non-target by-catch species. The goal is to release them unharmed at the depth they were caught, maximizing their chance of survival. Karl also provides a real time, unedited video live stream from his vessel so the public can watch his whole operation with full transparency.

Cathie Gould is based on Nelson, New Zealand. She is CEO of Daily Catch, a startup building an online marketplace connecting consumers directly with fishermen and other food producers. With a background in data capture technology and retail sale of regionally-significant food products, Cathie is passionate about telling the stories of people and place behind the food we eat. Transparency and authenticity, connection and community; these are themes being explored in meeting post-Covid responses for a transformed supply chain for seafood.

Matt Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer, The Nature Conservancy of California, has 20 years of experience in the field of geospatial technology that encompasses geographic information science, remote sensing, GPS, and drones. As CTO, Mr. Merrifield is responsible for research, strategy, and application of technology solutions to serve the Conservancy’s mission. He currently leads a team of data scientists, software developers, and designers with a portfolio of projects that utilize geospatial mapping, AI, and IoT to further advance conservation.

Kydd Pollock, Fisheries Science Manager, The Nature Conservancy.
With a BS in Biology and Aquaculture and geographically diverse professional experience in marine science, ocean engineering, aquaculture, and commercial fishing, Kydd brings a rare and valuable skillset to The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Large Scale Fisheries Program (LSFP). As the Fisheries Science Manager for the LSFP, Kydd oversees contracting, planning, installations and vendor relationships related to the deployment of Electronic Monitoring systems on commercial longline and purse seine fishing vessels throughout the Pacific. One of the challenges that excites him the most is utilizing the vast amount of data produced by EM to make large, globally-scaled conservation gains in the commercial fishing sector. In addition to his role with the LSFP, Kydd also leads the implementation of marine research assessing the efficacy and impact of blue water marine protected areas with TNC’s Climate Adaptation + Resilience Laboratory at Palmyra Atoll. Kydd lives and works from Oahu, Hawaii, with his wife (a marine biologist) and two adventurous children.

Malo Hosken is the Regional E-Reporting Coordinator of the Pacific Community. Since 2013, he has coordinated EM and ER trials in the WCPO convention area, working with National Fisheries Management Authorities in member countries, regional fisheries management organisations, NGOs, fishing companies and technical service providers. Working at SPC since 2009, Malo is committed to multi-stakeholder collaborations towards implementing E-Reporting and E-Monitoring tools that will help achieve sustainable fishing practices for the benefit of all.