Detect deadly fishing gear
Drones in the fight against illegal fishing
Through our porpoise project with „Whale and Dolphin Conservation“, our interest in the fight against illegal fishing and hunting at sea has continued to grow.
The well-known organization “Sea Shepherd” is already doing great work in combating this problem, so we decided to join forces with the Sea Shepherd team. By funding professional drones to record illegal activities at sea in order to generate evidence against the initiators, we are supporting Sea Shepherd in their work.
Operation Siso has been working with Italian authorities since 2018 to remove illegal driftnets and other deadly fishing gear around the Aeolian Islands (UNESCO World Heritage Site) in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, a part of the Mediterranean Sea off the west coast of Italy just twelve nautical miles from Cape Milazzo. The islands are all of volcanic origin and with their rich biodiversity provide a perfect environment for breeding grounds for many migratory species as well as sperm whales, beaked whales, pilot whales, as well as common dolphins, striped dolphins and round-headed dolphins.
Operation Siso aims to protect the fragile ecosystem of the Aeolian Islands from IUU fishing. The campaign also exposes the real consequences of the use of decoy buoys.
Since June 2021, Bees & Trees has been supporting Sea Shepherd in the fight against illegal, re-regulated and undocumented (IUU) fishing in the Mediterranean by deploying a swarm of drones.
Around the Aeolian Islands, the decoy buoys are anchored to the seabed at depths of up to 2,000 meters and consist of, for example, palm leaves and plastic bottles or barrels that serve as floats. These decoy buoys are used by fishermen only once and are not collected at the end of the season. Unfortunately, around the Aeolian Islands, hundreds of kilometers of sunken nylon lines of these old, left-behind decoy buoys can be found Slowly, they too are turning into microplastics that are making their way into our food chain.
This is also where Operation Siso comes in and cleans up the oceans. You can find more details on the Sea Shepherd site: