The vastness of the ocean also complicates surveillance efforts, even by sophisticated satellite tracking used by the likes of SkyTruth’s Bergman in West Virginia. Seen from above, the world’s largest fishing trawler, the Dutch-flagged Annelies Ilena, has a surface area of about thirty-five hundred square meters—equivalent to eight NBA courts. Even if a satellite were scanning just 1 percent of the Atlantic Ocean, the Annelies Ilena would take up only three-billionths of that swath.
