Snow Crab Fishery in New Brunswick, Canada

Ecotrust Canada, SnapIT, and Blue Ocean Gear partnered to develop, deploy, and test an electronic whale interaction mitigation system for the New Brunswick Mid-shore Traditional Snow Crab fleet for the 2018 fishing season.

The goal of the project is to help managers and industry make decisions to minimize whale interactions. The first stage of this project involved using an electronic whale interaction mitigation system comprised of robust and well-tested components that are currently being used internationally by Ecotrust Canada and SnapIT, along with Blue Ocean Gear’s Smart Buoy technology:

VMS unit

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag scanner and RID tags

Tablet-based e logbook application

Integrated database with an interactive map display

The system will give individual trap tracking and trap status, as well as two-way communications on whale sightings and interactions.