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iSharkFin, un nuevo software para salvar a los Tiburones

iSharkFin, a new software to save Sharks

A new computer program, whose name in English is iSharkFin, help protect species of endangered sharks and combat illegal shark fin trade.

It is a tool aimed at Customs officers and inspectors of markets for fish and fishermen who want to avoid the capture of protected species, explains Monica Barone, who led the team of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture FAO developed the software.

iSharkFin is an expert system that uses machine learning techniques to identify shark species from images of forms of shark fins.

The software was developed by FAO in collaboration with the University of Vigo, with financial support from the Government of Japan and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 2013.

The iSharkFin operates an interactive process. Users only have to take a standard photo, select some characteristics of a fin and choose a point in the way of it. iSharkFin automatically analyze the information and tell the species of shark fin which comes.

A first version of iSharkFin is now available for the identification of 35 species of sharks from the dorsal fins and 7 species from the pectoral fins.

Many of these species are the most commonly traded internationally and include some that are in the Appendices of CITES.

Future versions will try to add more species, but because some are disappearing, it is difficult to gather information.

Applying iSharkFin could help authorities solve a riddle existing long on the actual extent of world fisheries Sharks, as estimates of the number of dead sharks vary greatly.

A new study suggests that the figure may be above 73 million per year, or more than 6% of the total population. This number is greater than the sustainable rate considered for an animal that needs a long time to mature and have few offspring, and is four times the number reported by FAO on the basis of official statistics.

Barone argues that the use of iSharkFin should allow better understand this difference, since the data on the photographed fins can be used to extrapolate the alleged volume and weight of whole animals, and these data can be made an alternative calculation of total catches Shark.

SOURCE: Fis.com

About Genesis Vasquez Saldana

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