Capturing compelling footage of their encounters and environmental destruction is central to their mission, all starting aboard those far-flung boats.
“Every day we are physically out there in the ocean, hands-on, doing something—and because of that, we have a ton of footage and photos [of] everything we do,” says Lukas Erichsen, Sea Shepherd’s IT and media manager. He mentions that, over the years, they’ve sometimes seen themselves as almost as much a media organization as a conservation group due to the vast amount of content they produce.
With such vast documentation—often amounting to multiple terabytes of data per campaign—managing and protecting it all became a monumental task. That's why Sea Shepherd turned to Dropbox and Dropbox Replay to streamline their workflows and safeguard their content.
“We have things that are hard by nature, just because you're on a ship,” says Erichsen,“but anywhere we can, we try to streamline and simplify.”
A rising tide of data
Illegal fishing operations are growing more sophisticated. Aside from using encrypted communication, some now manipulate tracking systems like transponders to create false locations, making them much harder to detect than when they simply turned off the devices.
But Sea Shepherd is getting more tech-savvy, too.
In recent years, advances in satellite internet technology have revolutionized their ability to send and receive data from the middle of the ocean, whether it’s uploading video footage to Dropbox or providing real-time updates on mission progress.
Each of the eight ships in Sea Shepherd's fleet is equipped with high-resolution cameras, drones, and other advanced imaging equipment to document illegal activities and environmental impacts. Every mission generates countless hours of footage, from close run-ins with fishing vessels to video evidence of environmental destruction.
“You have only a few seconds to decide what’s happening out there, and if you miss that moment, you miss the shot,” says Erichsen.