Oct. 22, 2026

Ships Without License Plates: The Dark Fleet Behind Fishmeal

On March 8, 2024, Gambian navy officers working from a Sea Shepherd patrol ship arrested eight industrial trawlers within about 24 hours. Seven were fishing inside a coastal zone reserved for small local canoes. Four were using illegal small-mesh nets. All eight had switched off their tracking beacons.

They switched them off because they knew they shouldn’t be there. They got caught anyway, and that combination of hiding and getting caught is the story of fishing enforcement right now.

This week on How to Protect the Ocean, I’ve been following the fishmeal that feeds farmed fish. We looked at how farmed fish eat wild fish, then at whose dinner those wild fish used to be. This post is about the boats that catch them, and whether anyone can see those boats at all.

Most of the fleet is invisible

Most of us assume someone is watching. We have coast guards, satellites and global communications networks. Surely somebody knows where the fishing boats are.

For most of the fleet, the public has no idea. A 2024 study in Nature combined satellite radar, optical imagery and AI to compare the boats actually on the water against the boats broadcasting their positions. About 75% of industrial fishing vessels were missing from public tracking, with much of that untracked fishing around Africa and South Asia.

The picture is worse for boats supplying fishmeal. The Outlaw Ocean Project assessed more than 2,400 ships tied to fishmeal production. Fewer than 30% had publicly available location data, fewer than 25% had a unique vessel ID number, and fewer than 10% appeared in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s global record of fishing vessels.

How a boat disappears

Many vessels carry a beacon called AIS, which broadcasts position, speed and identity. Cargo ships, tankers and many fishing boats use it, and it works well when it’s on. A crew planning to fish somewhere it shouldn’t can simply turn it off.

A boat without a permanent ID number has another escape route. Every vessel flies the flag of the country it’s registered in, and owners can register almost anywhere. A boat caught fishing illegally can repaint its hull, change its name, register under a new flag with new paperwork, and come back as a different ship.

Transshipment means a boat may never have to come home. A fishing vessel hands its catch to a refrigerated carrier at sea, takes on fuel and supplies, and keeps fishing for months, far from port inspectors. Illegal catch gets mixed with legal catch before anything reaches shore. Once it’s offloaded by the hundreds of tonnes, inspectors can only check a sample.

What hiding costs

Marine protected areas only protect if someone can see inside them. The Outlaw Ocean Project found more than 70 fishmeal-linked ships likely fishing inside MPAs on more than 600 occasions.

The people on board pay too. Researchers have found that labor abuse and illegal fishing tend to show up together, in the same ports and on the same fishing trips. Since 2018, at least 50 crew deaths and injuries have been recorded on fishmeal vessels, mostly from sinkings, explosions and toxic gases released as fish rot in the holds.

Distance from shore can decide whether an injured worker survives. In January 2020, Viktor Boshko was helping set a trawl net on the Kalinovka in the Russian Far East when his hand was pinned against a steel cable. Part of his thumb was torn off and his forearm was crushed. He had emergency surgery on a sister ship, then was sent back to work on the Kalinovka, where the wound became infected. While still on board, he signed papers taking the blame for the accident, under what local media described as company pressure. He reached shore nearly two weeks after the injury, and doctors amputated much of his arm. A prosecutor’s review found the captain was not negligent because ice had kept the ship from reaching port.

What happens when someone comes looking

The Gambia reserves roughly the first 10 miles of its coast for small-scale fishers, and industrial trawlers kept fishing there anyway. In 2019, the government partnered with Sea Shepherd, which supplied a patrol ship while Gambian navy and fisheries officers came aboard with the power to arrest.

On an early patrol, they caught two Chinese trawlers well inside the zone, one trawling just under two miles from the beach. Both logbooks were blank. A crew member led reporters to the wheelhouse roof and showed them a nest of blankets and newspapers, where extra workers had been sleeping for weeks because the captain had hired more crew than the boat could hold. Five years later came the eight arrests in a single day.

Indonesia took a different route. Under fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti, the country seized and destroyed hundreds of illegal fishing boats, sinking 51 foreign vessels in one day in May 2019. Earlier rounds had been blown up on live television. Her more lasting move came in 2017, when Indonesia became the first country to publish its vessel tracking data on Global Fishing Watch’s free public map. About 5,000 fishing boats that only the government could see became visible to anyone with an internet connection.

Peru, Panama and Chile followed. Satellite radar now detects boats even when their beacons are off. The Port State Measures Agreement covers 111 countries that can refuse to let illegal catch into port. Going dark used to buy a boat near-total cover, and every year it buys less.

What you can do tonight

Open the free Global Fishing Watch map, zoom in on the coastline nearest you, and see who’s fishing there. Picture the ocean as a mostly blank map at night. Every year, more dots light up as tracking data, satellites and observers fill in the gaps. The boats that relied on darkness are running out of places to hide, and you can watch it happen on your phone.

At the seafood counter, farmed mussels, oysters and clams are among the safest farmed choices, since they need no feed at all. If you emailed your favourite seafood brand yesterday to ask where its fishmeal comes from, keep the pressure on.

Tomorrow, we follow the catch to shore and look at what happens when it ends up under a “sustainable” label.

Takeaways

About 75% of industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked.
Fewer than 30% of ships supplying fishmeal have public location data, and fewer than 10% are in the FAO global vessel record.
Switching off AIS, reflagging and transshipment let illegal boats avoid detection and stay at sea for months.
More than 70 fishmeal-linked ships were likely fishing inside marine protected areas on 600+ occasions.
Patrols in The Gambia, Indonesia’s public tracking data, satellite radar and port controls are making dark fishing harder.
Check the Global Fishing Watch map, and choose farmed bivalves when buying farmed seafood.

Sources:

Andrew Lewin

CEO

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