Kimberly Vosburgh

A carrier vessel is a type of vessel used to transport fish, supplies, and crew to and from fishing vessels, allowing fishing vessels to stay out at sea for longer periods of time. A carrier vessel can receive catch, or ‘tranship’, from one or more fishing vessels at sea or in port and then offload

The data in the portal is created using automatic identification system (AIS) data. AIS transmits a ship’s position so that others can be made aware of its location and avoid potential collision. AIS transmits a ship’s location, speed, direction, and identity information, such as a vessel’s name and flag. Global Fishing Watch uses AIS data

The data in the portal currently spans from January 2017 until 72 hours ago. We adjusted our authorization categories to enable the inclusion of the most recent month of data. Although all of our AIS data is provided until 72 hours ago, the registry records are updated at the beginning of each month with a

The portal displays all carrier vessels demonstrating possible transshipment activity, including encounters and loitering events, with a fishing vessel. It also shows the fishing vessels, or donor vessels, involved in these encounters.

The authorization data is retrieved from public sources regarding both current and historic registration of vessels to seven regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), including the five main tuna RFMOs: Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) Inter-American-Tropical-Tuna Commission (IATTC) International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC)

The portal provides greater transparency into the activities of carrier vessels, their authorizations, the regions and ports they most frequent and, to the greatest extent possible, insight into the interactions between fishing vessels and carrier vessel fleets. The portal provides users with the ability to access information or conduct activities such as: View a comprehensively

Encounters may indicate potential transshipment activity between two vessels that both appear on AIS. Encounters are estimated using AIS data, including distance between the two vessels, vessel speeds, and duration in a given area.  An encounter is defined as when two vessels, a carrier vessel and encountered fishing vessel, are detected on AIS data as

Loitering is when a single vessel exhibits behavior indicative of a potential encounter event. Loitering is estimated using automatic identification system (AIS) data, including vessel speed, duration in a given location, and distance from shore. Loitering occurs when a vessel travels at average speed of < two knots, while at least an average of 20

Ports in the portal are based upon the Global Fishing Watch anchorages dataset, a global database of anchorage locations where vessels congregate. The dataset contains over 160,000 individual anchorage locations, which are further grouped into nearly 32,000 ports. A vessel is considered to have visited a port when within three kilometers of an anchorage location

This global, public database and monitoring portal of carrier vessels involved in transshipment to help arm relevant authorities – from fishery managers to policymakers – with the information and evidence needed to strengthen transparency and accelerate transshipment policy reform, notably within the five global tuna regional fisheries management organizations where policy action has historically been