And the physical challenges of life aboard a trawler are only one side of the story; declining fish prices, rising fuel and maintenance costs for trawlers and a slew of environmental regulations and policy decisions have left fishers navigating increasingly choppy waters.
With tightening environmental regulations, the fishing industry is now adapting its traditional ways of working – and its equipment – to operate efficiently within this new landscape. In addition, beginning on January 1, a new global sulfur cap of 0.5 percent will be enforced on all shipping, with an additional reduction to a 0.1 percent cap in the IMO’s ECAs.
But adapting existing boats will require trawler owners to seriously compare the cost of maintenance against the greater expense of buying a newly equipped vessel. While repairing or upgrading existing equipment incurs lower initial costs, this course of action can prove more expensive in the long run.
For example, boat owners who were quick to adapt their vessels for pulse fishing – a trawling technique that uses small electric shocks to jolt fish from the sea floor and drive them upwards into floating nets – may question their investment in light of the ongoing debate about this controversial practice.
To help both fishers and regulatory bodies monitor fleets and ensure they comply with the rules, new technology, such as interactive maps, have been put in place to show near real-time movements of individual vessels and fishing fleets around the world. With advanced satellite technology and machine learning, the Global Fishing Watch algorithm can identify over 70,000 fishing vessels, as well as determine the size, engine power and fishing type of each boat, where it fished and for how long.