YOKOSUKA, Japan - A local coast guard office in Kanagawa Prefecture is studying the use of an artificial intelligence-powered aerial drone to counter the poaching of marine products.
The Yokosuka Coast Guard Office, which usually monitors poachers by sight, conducted a drone trial on the coast of Yokosuka, near Tokyo, this summer in cooperation with a university.
The drone was able to detect poaching of turban shells in August when the video feed from the drone camera showed a man swimming and labelled him as "Suspicious."
The drone "will help us to monitor more efficiently," a coast guard official said.
Makoto Motoki, professor at Kanto Gakuin University, and his research team have been training the detection system with coast guard officers playing the role of poachers.
Motoki said the trial demonstrated that AI can accurately detect poachers in real-world situations.
"We want to continue the development for practical use," he said.
According to the coast guard, it has seen a growing number of so-called "leisure poaching" cases, where people visit the Miura Peninsula, a coastal region in the prefecture, on holidays and engage in the illegal harvesting of marine products.
The office referred 109 poaching-related cases to prosecutors in 2024 and 129 cases in 2025.
