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With six of the seven main tuna species already fully fished or overfished, this study aims to find a correlation between tuna distribution and spawning grounds with reefer activity. Tuna is a highly sought-after fish species and reefers provide increased fishing activity while their use in transshipment can also aid in IUU fishing that mainly targets tuna sub-species. On a global scale, the study was unable to find any correlation between reefer activity and tuna distribution or habitat.

Transshipment at high seas is very difficult to monitor, allowing the possibility of illegally caught fish to enter the legitimate seafood market, or enabling human rights abuses. This paper uses AIS data to track global transshipment behavior. They find that a majority of transshipment occurs at high seas outside of EEZ boundaries–areas that may lack national jurisdiction or where regulations are difficult to enforce. Additionally, possible transshipment encounters are happening with vessels flying flags of convenience. Together, these findings paint a scene of large transparency issues in global transshipment behaviors that will need to be addressed by governing bodies.

Without a Worldwide Unique Vessel Identifier (WUVI) database, the International community has largely relied on data in self-created combined vessel lists for spatiotemporal mappings of fishing presence, effort, and footprint. Projects match fishing vessel registration identifiers to their alleged AIS MMSI numbers using these vessel lists. This study aims to prove that this method has yielded a large number of erroneous ship identification references. Global Fishing Watch, one of the largest vessel identification projects, is crosschecked with the vessel data that the study gathered and found that it suffers from major flaws and biases. Such errors put at risk both the creditability of the GFW and private/independent fisheries monitoring control & surveillance (MCS) initiatives. Not only should projects use more scientific responsibility, but a worldwide database could also help end the data-gathering methods that brought these mistakes about.

FISH-i Africa has identified an increasing number of squid vessels operating in the Northwest Indian Ocean (NWIO). The problem is that these squid fisheries are unregulated because the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (the region's RFMO) only has a mandate over tuna and tuna-like species. These fisheries are deliberately fishing on the high seas outside countries' EEZ zones to bypass national jurisdiction. The report gives a detailed account of the activity and characteristics of this emerging squid fishery and provides sound reasoning for immediate management frameworks to protect the region and the species.