Northern Lights

By Garret Evridge

hat will the Alaska seafood industry look like in 30 years? Given the pace of innovation, it’s not hard to envision an industry transformed by arti cial intelligence, cloud computing, robotics, remote sensing, and electric motors and batteries. This transformation is already occurring across manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation sectors, among others. Consider the possibilities for the shing and seafood industries.

Fishing vessels could operate on electric or hydrogen power, serving as informed by machine learning could suggest the optimal place to set pots or longlines based on historical data and current conditions. Seafood could be sorted automatically on deck with no human intervention; pots could passively discard undersized crab on the sea oor.

Plant managers could have their operations at their ngertips, with real-time data about production, packaging, and shipping only a click away. Deliveries could be seamlessly coordinated with processing and shipping capacity. Advanced analytics, machine vision, and other forms of automation could increase product yield, enable predictive maintenance, and free sta from repetitive and injury-prone tasks.

Regulators, too, could use smart sensors and real-time data to shift from periodic stock assessments to a dynamic

hubs for connected devices, including sensors and unmanned vehicles. Fishing gear could be “smart,” able to distinguish between targeted and nontargeted species. Advanced tools

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management system. With onboard cameras, automatic scanning, and satellite imagery, shery managers could simplify and reduce the cost of reporting while increasing surveillance of illegal, unreported, and unregulated activities. Unmanned drones could remain at-sea year-round, actively monitoring the location and health of sh stocks.

Achieving what is possible in 2050 is not a minor task. But the main challenges are not technical — many of these things are feasible today or will be soon. Instead, the roadblocks include nding people in the industry willing to experiment with early-stage technology, myopic sh politics, access to nancing, and a regulatory environment that can limit innovation.

Alaska is already moving in the right direction. Processors have invested millions of dollars into advanced lleting, handling, and freezing technologies, while the trawl eet has used underwater cameras, excluders, and information sharing to reduce bycatch. Last year, NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center piloted the rst stock survey using autonomous vehicles provided by Saildrone, a landmark achievement that enabled managers to complete the stock assessments during unprecedented challenges due to the covid-19 pandemic.

But more can be done, particularly when it comes to helping early-stage companies critical to developing and scaling new technologies. That’s why the Alaska Ocean Cluster is supporting founders working on the next wave of transformative ocean products and services.

Take, for example, Blue Ocean Gear’s (blueoceangear. com) Farallon smart buoy. The seven-inch buoy transmits location, temperature, and other parameters to a vessel or owner onshore. This past year saw its rst deployment in the Bering Sea crab shery. The successful pilot project reduced time spent looking for gear, saved thousands of dollars in potential lost gear, and withstood one of the most di cult

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Blue Ocean Gear’s Farallon smart buoy transmits location, temperature and other parameters to a vessel or owner onshore.

environments on earth.

Or SafetyNet Technologies (sntech.co.uk) which o ers a portfolio of products designed for modern sheries. Their Pisces light takes advantage of how sh and crab react to light underwater, attracting target species while repelling others. Early deployments in Europe have supported bycatch

The receiving end of Blue Ocean Gear’s Farallon smart buoy’s transmissions can save thousands in lost gear.

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Amphibious doer Mickey Murch fits his crabbing in between his farm work in Bolinas, California. COLIN MCCARTHY © 2021 Patagonia, Inc.

The Pisces light from SafetyNet Technologies attracts the right catch.

reductions up to 90 percent in some cases.

Others are working to make wild sheries more cost competitive. PolArctic (polarcticllc.com), a pioneering data sciences and oceanographic company o ers advanced remote sensing and machine learning capabilities to forecast ice conditions in the Bering Sea, conduct advanced seafood data analytics, and map coastal conditions. The rm is the rst in the world to integrate local indigenous knowledge into an applied arti cial intelligence model.

Support services are vital to the industry, with improvements in transportation rates, reliability, and technology a key component of a modern sector. OpenTug’s (opentug.com) online marine shipment platform allows shippers and customers to coordinate e ciently, o ering rate reductions of 20 percent or more. Savings of this magnitude across the industry would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

These are just a few of the startups the Alaska Ocean Cluster supports. Working with entrepreneurs is the primary reason we remain optimistic about the future, even with the myriad challenges faced by our sheries. We are excited to help startups, industry, and other stakeholders realize the full potential of the Alaska seafood industry.

Garrett Evridge is from Kodiak. He’s fi shed commercially across the state, conducted analysis as a seafood economist, and now manages the Alaska Ocean Cluster (alaskaoceancluster.com).

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