Multifish tracking for marine biodiversity monitoring

Accurate recognition of multiple fish species is essential in marine ecology and fisheries. Precisely classifying and tracking these species enriches our comprehension of their movement patterns and empowers us to create precise maps of species-specific territories. Such profound insights are pivotal in conserving endangered species, promoting sustainable fishing practices, and preserving marine ecosystems’ overall health and equilibrium. To partially address these needs, we present a proposed model that combines YOLOv8 for object detection with ByteTrack for tracking. YOLOv8’s oriented bounding boxes help to improve object detection across angles, while ByteTrack’s robustness in various scenarios makes it ideal for real-time tracking. Experimental results using the SEAMAPD21 dataset show the model’s effectiveness, with YOLOv8n being the lightweight yet modestly accurate option, suitable for constrained environments. The study also identifies challenges in fish tracking, such as lighting variations and fish appearance changes, and proposes solutions for future research. Overall, the proposed model shows promising fish tracking and counting results, which is essential for monitoring marine life.