Russia Tests AI Service to Help Fishermen Find Fish

Russia's fishing industry is trying out an artificial intelligence service designed to help locate fish. The Center for the Monitoring System of Fisheries and Communications (CSMS) presented the "Lotsiya" service at the IX International Fishery Forum and Exhibition of the Fishing Industry, Seafood and Technologies, according to Rosrybolovstvo.

The system draws on satellite and oceanographic data, catch records and fleet activity to produce fishing forecasts. It is meant to speed up the search for promising fish concentrations, cutting the time and money spent on exploratory fishing.

Lotsiya assesses water temperature, thermal fronts, currents, salinity, oxygen levels, wind, wave height, cloud cover, fog, moon phases and other parameters that would normally each require separate analysis. Results come in the form of specialized maps.

CSMS head Alexander Mikhailov stressed that the service does not promise a guaranteed catch - it only shows where conditions look most favorable for a given fish species based on available data. The service is currently accompanying, in test mode, the fishing of ivasi sardine, saury, pollock, Pacific cod and herring. No results of the experiment have been reported.

Earlier, German Zverev, president of the All-Russian Association of Fishery Industrialists (VARPE), commenting on an exceptionally poor salmon season, called on Rosrybolovstvo and the Russian Federal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) to sort out faulty forecasts. He noted that even May estimates of future catches bore no relation to reality, so scientists need to investigate and change their methodology.