Dark vessels satellite mission

Some fishing vessels try to hide in the vast ocean by turning off their location-transmitting devices, fishing where they think no one can see them. They are known as ‘dark vessels’. Satellite and radar technology is being used to protect our oceans from this type of criminal behaviour.

This animated video is part of the Build a satellite interactive. To find out more about using satellites to track dark vessels fishing illegally, see the article How do we find dark fishing vessels on the ocean? then follow up with the activity Analysing satellite data for finding dark vessels.

Transcript

Kia ora, thanks for joining me.

I am out here in the ocean trying to catch ships illegally fishing in our waters.

These ships, known as ‘dark vessels’, switch off their location-transmitting devices to avoid being detected, and it is really hard to find them in this vast ocean!

They take too many fish from our precious moana and need to be caught!

We’ve been thinking. What if we use a special radar from a satellite to track down these dark fishing vessels?

We are pretty excited about the possibilities!

Can you help us build and launch a satellite that is fit for our purpose? I know you can! Thanks e hoa.