Robots Could Solve the Lionfish Ecological Disaster (mashable.com) 20
"Lionfish are an invasive species that are destroying our coral reefs and fisheries," writes SkinnyGuy. "The non-profit RISE (from iRobot's Colin Angle) has a plan to use robots to fish these Lionfish and serve them up to us on a delicious, golden platter." Mashable reports:
This was not as crazy of an idea as it sounds and Angle had already been wondering "if there was still a way to use robot technology to solve larger environmental problems and maybe more proactively than merely sending our defense robots to natural disaster zones"... Could, Angle wondered, a robot even do the job and could it do it at scale? "Spending half a million dollars to build a robot that kill 10 lionfish is absurd," he told me...
They started with fresh-water electro fishing technology and adapted it for salt water. The robot stuns, but doesn't kill the lionfish and then it sucks them into the robot. It does this over and over again, until full of unconscious fish and then rises to the surface where a fisherman can unload the catch and deliver them to waiting restaurants and food stores. "Ultimately, the control of this device is like a PlayStation game: you're looking at screen and using a joystick controller. Zap it, catch it, do it again, said RISE Executive Director John Rizzi who told me that a team of unpaid volunteers have been working on the prototype for over a year."
The fish-killing robot will launch in Bermuda at the America's Cup festivities on April 19th, where there'll also be a celebrity chef lionfish cook-off and other events to help raise money "to further developer, build and deliver these robots to commercial fishermen and women."
They started with fresh-water electro fishing technology and adapted it for salt water. The robot stuns, but doesn't kill the lionfish and then it sucks them into the robot. It does this over and over again, until full of unconscious fish and then rises to the surface where a fisherman can unload the catch and deliver them to waiting restaurants and food stores. "Ultimately, the control of this device is like a PlayStation game: you're looking at screen and using a joystick controller. Zap it, catch it, do it again, said RISE Executive Director John Rizzi who told me that a team of unpaid volunteers have been working on the prototype for over a year."
The fish-killing robot will launch in Bermuda at the America's Cup festivities on April 19th, where there'll also be a celebrity chef lionfish cook-off and other events to help raise money "to further developer, build and deliver these robots to commercial fishermen and women."
This is all Picard's fault! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:An efficient robot to harvest fish? (Score:5, Informative)
Commercial fishermen could harvest any fish, not just lionfish.
This robot is only useful for reef fish, not open water where most food species live. Fishermen going after reef fish are usually capturing for the aquarium market, and they currently use dynamite or chlorine bleach to stun the fish indiscriminately, while destroying the coral. If they switch to robots, it would be a vast improvement.
Re: (Score:2)
I like the idea. Swarms of underwater lionfish hunting drones. Or Zebra Mussels in the great lakes. Or Asian Car in the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
Or how about swarms of small farming robots scurrying around a cornfield picking pests off plants and digging up Gypsumweed.
And Marching columns of robot ants marching over the mountains of West Virginia selectively pulling Wild Garlic Mustard.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd never heard of gypsumweed, but after a moment's thought it occurred to me that it might be a mishearing of jimsom weed. A quick web search revealed that it was [arnoldzwicky.org], and that jimson weed itself was originally Jamestown weed. This is why botanists always use scientific names.
No! (Score:2)
"you're looking at screen and using a joystick controller. Zap it, catch it, do it again, "
That's a waldo not a robot.
Maybe they can (Score:3)
Were you not just warned about this people? (Score:2)
Robots feeding off fish is the literal starting point for the problems in Horizon Zero Dawn [twinfinite.net].
Re: (Score:2)
o noes not the pleble killing robits!
Got three words for you - (Score:2)
RISE (Score:2)
I'm not sure I want to support a robotics company named RISE. Particularly if said robots are specifically designed to kill things.
Oh wait, this is actually a Waldo and not a robot, with a human operator consciously deciding to do the mass fish-killing? Carry on.
(Can't decide if I mean that sarcastically.)
They are yummy (Score:4, Informative)
Flakey, white, and mild tasting. Kind of like a hog fish (providing you've had one of those). I've been saying for a while, if you want to get rid of them, give seafood lovers a taste of them. Their flesh is not toxic, that's the spines. Since they won't bite a hook, catching them requires labor-intensive spear fishing, but this may help despite the initial investment.
Re: (Score:2)
how about bullets with strings? We can call them harpoons!
Re: (Score:2)
I'd honestly be surprised if a robot is any more cost effective than using human labour in many areas, the robotic advantage is undoubtedly in places with more dangerous tidal swell or at depths below 40m. This might be less true in Florida, but labour is much cheaper throughout large swathes of the Caribbean and many such nations would love to be able to profit from protecting their reefs. The biggest barrier I could see is that there is simply not a functioning industry to export them currently. If there
Unsupervised Killing Machines (Score:1)