Right now, fewer than one in five ground fishing trips in New England is monitored by an independent observer. Fishermen say it’s too expensive, and unfair to ask them to pay the cost. The Nature Conservancy is experimenting with an alternative: video monitoring systems, and computer algorithms that could identify fish being caught and thrown overboard on every trip.
They're running a competition for the best algorithm through the end of the month and expect to have results in the spring. The goal is to save money, and improve both enforcement of regulations and the science that’s used to set catch limits. We talk with Chris McGuire of the Nature Conservancy.