This project would allow smelts to build four gillnet rafts

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded Smelts Sea Mammal Education Learning Technology Society a $320,600 cooperative agreement on July 1, 2026, under the Cooperative Research Program (CFDA 11.472) to build and equip four gillnet rafts with marine mammal detection and monitoring systems.

Smelts will complete all four raft units by March 2026 for integration with acoustic detection platforms. Two units will combine JASCO OceanObserver and BlueIQ OpenEar acoustic AI sensors with Teledyne Ultra Compact Modems to enable automated marine mammal detection, including North Atlantic right whale capability, with data transmission back to surface vessels without requiring gear recovery. Both systems function as passive acoustic monitors with onboard storage. The third and fourth units will be equipped as standard gillnet rafts with Teledyne modems. All four rafts will receive CatchCam cameras capable of capturing four-day video at commercial offshore gillnet locations. Smelts will also install a newly developed shipboard control system on a commercial gillnet fishing vessel for marking and recovery of ropeless and on-demand gear, along with asset tracker gateways and tags for integration with ropeless and traditional fishing equipment.

Work is performed in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. The period of performance runs from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027. The Cooperative Research Program funds partnerships between the fishing industry, fishermen, and federal and university scientists to collect fundamental fisheries information supporting species and ecosystem assessment models.

All four units would be completed by march 2026 and be ready for integration with marine mammal detection systems from jasco and blueiq. One unit would have a jasco oceanobserver integrated with teledyne ultra compact modem (UCM) that runs automated marine mammal detectors and sends messages acoustically back to the ship. A second unit would be integrated with blueiq openear acoustic AI sensor that would have north atlantic right whale detection capability and would be integrated with teledyne UCM to send detections back to surface without having to recover gear. Both of these systems would also be acting as passive acoustic monitors with storage. The third and fourth units would be standard gillnet rafts, with teledyne ucms. Four catchcam cameras would be installed, one on each raft that can capture video for four days at commercial offshore gillnet locations. Then, the researchers would install a newly developed shipboard control system for marking and recovery of smelts gillnet rafts into a commercial gillnet fishing vessel. This system would mark and recover ropeless/on-demand gear. Smelts, in coordination with the partner captain, would install asset tracker gateway on a commercial gillnet fishing vessel and tags into ropeless and traditional gear.