Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/28/albatrosses-deployed-to-detect.html
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Interesting if this story convinces some of the illegal fishermen to turn off their radar. But that would mean they wouldn’t have any advance warning when other ships approach, well except for radar detectors on the ship.
All in all it probably doesn’t matter unless the government seriously steps up enforcement of fishing bans.
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OK, this is the coolest thing I’ve heard all week.
@jandrese I’m waiting for something more along the lines of, damn birds are working for Sea Shepherd now!!!
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Yeah, but they only stoppeth one in three…
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And when the fishermen shoot the albatross and the crew’s souls are taken by Death after the ship is stuck in still slimy waters - what then?
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The data gets uploaded in realtime to satellite so shooting the birds doesn’t help. In fact it might make their situation worse if those birds are endangered.
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Sadly, the GPS Tracking and Criminal Prosecution of the Ancient Mariner doesn’t have the same ring to it…
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And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
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illegal fish vessels
Who gave these lazy-ass fish vessels to use? Just swim!
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Step 2: wing-mounted torpedoes.
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It’s a neat idea, but it seems like it’s not something that will scale well because it will just lead to lawless fisherman slaughtering albatrosses wholesale with traps, guns or whatever method comes to hand, just in case. That would be a disaster because many species of albatross are endangered.
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Next up: drone manufacturers find market for albatross-hunting models in maritime community.
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ALBATROSS! Albatross … Al-baaa-tross!
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Nahhh, fricking lasers.
Do you get wafers with it?
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What flavour is it?
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Did it wind up around anyone’s neck? Asking for a friend…
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Meanwhile 105 years ago…
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Besides which the radar will be detected long before the boat sees them. They’re likely too small to show up on the radar since the radar is explicitly designed to detect other boats and seaborne obstacles. That’s the whole point of radar, to see beyond the range of the naked eye. They may never even see the bird that gives them away.
Even if they could somehow get access to and afford millions of dollars on the kind of military radar and computer controlled point defense autocannon used by professional navies (which they damn well can’t both because of the expense and because those are hard to come by even on the black market), they’d only succeed in killing an endangered animal with seriously illegal weaponry after their position was given away.
And you can bet that even if the authorities can’t be bothered to intercept an illegal fishing boat, they’d stop at nothing to hunt down any civilian craft sporting military autoguns for a nice long prison sentence instead of maybe a hefty illegal fishing fine.
I suppose that could work if the fishing boats are flying a constant patrol outside their radar perimeter. But the drones’ wireless signal would also be detectable and that seems like another way to get charged with the kind of crimes that carry jail time instead of mere fines.
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