How REM Technology Can Improve Fishing

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In 2024, the British government embraced the use of remote electronic monitoring (REM) technology to make fishing more sustainable. This initiative comes as part of a wider push across Europe to pursue modern, high-tech solutions to revitalize one of the oldest practices in human society.

High-Tech Fishing
For most fishermen, all that’s needed is a reel or a net, maybe a boat, and permission to trawl their local waters. However, wide range of technology is now used to make fishing easier and more beneficial for everybody involved. It has also been used to make fishing more popular as an activity, by introducing more people to angling through online videos or games.

While it’s not the real deal, fishing videos are popular on social media and other video-sharing sites. Likewise, interactive software can take users to digital waters where they can see how it works without leaving solid ground.

Entertainment sites like iGaming platforms also host popular slots that use fishing and other underwater settings to appeal to those who like everything to do with angling. This is best seen with the Fishing Frenzy slot variant, where every spin is framed around catching fish and other nautical symbols along its reels. It turns the natural randomness of fishing into part of the game and promotes fishing as an activity for entirely new audiences. Humans have fished for centuries but, thanks to relatively modern tech like the internet and digital simulation, more people than ever can explore a fishing trip online.

While fishing-themed entertainment helps make fishing more popular, modern tech can help actual anglers see deeper into fishing waters than ever before. For example, fish finders sense groups of fish without the fisherman ever laying eyes on them. Similarly, industrial fishermen can use larger sensors to manage the fishing population across an entire region. In addition, LED lights are also used to lure some species in while making sure others stay far away, so anglers can target specific types of fish. They can also use quantifiable metrics to manage their yields better, preventing over-fishing and other issues that could threaten fish populations.

How REM Improves Fishing
Following a twelve-week consultation with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in 2023, the UK government began to pursue the use of remote electronic monitoring. Initially proposed by the UK’s Conservative government, the move is now being implemented by the new Labour administration. According to the DEFRA consultation notes, REM implementation will start at five of the UK’s priority fisheries.

As for what REM is – it’s a sophisticated method for capturing data from a fishing vessel as it trawls in its local waters. The average REM system is comprised of four components:

1. A black box unit with GPS and wireless capability.
2. An antenna to facilitate wireless communication.
3. Digital IP cameras to survey catches.
4. Analog and digital sensors to detect fishing activity.

These four components are installed at various points throughout the vessel, bringing its equipment up to date with the latest standards for high-tech fishing. The UK government predicts that the REM rollout will take approximately five years to complete.

Once complete, early adopters of REM can expect better quality data that is easily accessible to fishery management. It also automates a lot of processes that would typically be done by a human, freeing them to work elsewhere on the ship and making the fishing process more efficient. REM boat efficiency should make the whole supply chain better as a result, reducing costs for the consumer. Traditional monitoring can be expensive for fisheries, so automating the process cuts down on costs that would otherwise get shifted to supermarket customers.

As REM adoption continues in the UK, fisheries in and around the North Sea are expected to benefit the most. However, organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund push for REM in the USA, highlighting that it’ll be an overdue improvement to a £130 billion industry. With REM implementation, it could be worth even more.