Feature
The fishermen who became ocean data collectors
Sensors fixed to fishing boats are filling the gaps that research vessels cannot afford to reach.
Science correspondent
6 min read
A trawler returns to harbour. The white box on its mast logs water temperature every ten minutes.
Every morning, forty small fishing boats leave the harbour carrying something new: a white plastic box about the size of a shoebox, bolted to the mast.
Inside are sensors that measure water temperature, salinity and oxygen. By evening, the data is on a university server, filling in a map that scientists have never been able to complete.
Cheaper than a research ship
A day on a research vessel costs tens of thousands of dollars. The sensors cost $900 each. Fishermen are paid a small fee for every day of data, and in return get detailed temperature maps that help them find fish.
“They know the sea better than we do. We just never asked them to write it down,” said the project’s lead oceanographer.
The data has already been used to detect an unusual marine heatwave two weeks before satellites confirmed it. Similar projects are now running in Norway, Chile and Japan.
Leo Hartmann
Science correspondent
Leo writes about research, researchers and the long road from lab to headline.
