Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Brian N. Chin, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Trinity College

I saw it firsthand after my cat Murphy died earlier this year. She’d been diagnosed with cancer just weeks before.

She was a small gray tabby with delicate paws who, even during chemotherapy, climbed her favorite dresser perch – Mount Murphy – with steady determination.

The day after she died, a colleague said with a shrug: “It’s just part of life.”

That phrase stayed with me – not because it was wrong, but because of how quickly it dismissed something real.

Murphy wasn’t just a cat. She was my eldest daughter – by bond, if not by blood. My shadow.

Why pet grief doesn’t count

More than two-thirds of U.S. households include pets. Americans tend to treat them like family with birthday cakes, shared beds and names on holiday cards.

But when someone grieves them like family, the cultural script flips. Grief gets minimized. Support gets awkward. And when no one acknowledges your loss, it starts to feel like you weren’t even supposed to love them that much in the first place.

I’ve seen this kind of grief up close – in my research and in my own life.
I am a psychologist who studies attachment, loss and the human-animal bond.

And I’ve seen firsthand how often grief following pet loss gets brushed aside – treated as less valid, less serious or less worthy of support than human loss. After a pet dies, people often say the wrong thing – usually trying to help, but often doing the opposite.

When loss is minimized or discounted

Psychologists describe this kind of unacknowledged loss as disenfranchised grief: a form of mourning that isn’t fully recognized by social norms or institutions. It happens after miscarriages, breakups, job loss – and especially after the death of a beloved animal companion.

The pain is real for the person grieving, but what’s missing is the social support to mourn that loss.

Even well-meaning people struggle to respond in ways that feel supportive.
And when grief gets dismissed, it doesn’t just hurt – it makes us question whether we’re even allowed to feel it.

Here are three of the most common responses – and what to do instead:

‘Just a pet’

This is one of the most reflexive responses after a loss like this. It sounds harmless. But under the surface is a cultural belief that grieving an animal is excessive – even unprofessional.

That belief shows up in everything from workplace leave policies to everyday conversations. Even from people trying to be kind.

But pet grief isn’t about the species, it’s about the bond. And for many, that bond is irreplaceable.

Pets often become attachment figures; they’re woven into our routines, our emotional lives and our identities. Recent research shows that the quality of the human-pet bond matters deeply – not just for well-being, but for how we grieve when that connection ends.

What’s lost isn’t “just an animal.” It’s the steady presence who greeted you every morning. The one who sat beside you through deadlines, small triumphs and quiet nights. A companion who made the world feel a little less lonely.

But when the world treats that love like it doesn’t count, the loss can cut even deeper.

It may not come with formal recognition or time off, but it still matters. And love isn’t less real just because it came with fur.

If someone you care about loses a pet, acknowledge the bond. Even a simple “I’m so sorry” can offer real comfort.

‘I know how you feel’

“I know how you feel” sounds empathetic, but it quietly shifts the focus from the griever to the speaker. It rushes in with your story before theirs has even had a chance to land.

That instinct comes from a good place. We want to relate, to reassure, to let someone know they’re not alone. But when it comes to grief, that impulse often backfires. Grief doesn’t need to be matched. It needs to be honored and given time, care and space to unfold, whether the loss is of a person or a pet.

Instead of responding with your own story, try simpler, grounding words:

• “That sounds really hard.”

• “I’m so sorry.”

• “I’m here if you want to talk.”

You don’t need to understand someone’s grief to make space for it. What helps isn’t comparison – it’s presence.

Let them name the loss. Let them remember. Let them say what hurts.

Sometimes, simply staying present – without rushing, problem-solving or shifting the focus away – is the most meaningful thing you can do.

‘You can always get another one’

“You can always get another one” is the kind of thing people offer reflexively when they don’t know what else to say – a clumsy attempt at reassurance.

Underneath is a desire to soothe, to fix, to make the sadness go away. But that instinct can miss the point: The loss isn’t practical – it’s personal. And grief isn’t a problem to be solved.

This type of comment often lands more like customer service than comfort. It treats the relationship as replaceable, as if love were something you can swap out like a broken phone.

But every pet is one of a kind – not just in how they look or sound, but in how they move through your life. The way they wait for you at the door and watch you as you leave. The small rituals that you didn’t know were rituals until they stopped. You build a life around them without realizing it, until they’re no longer in it.

You wouldn’t tell someone to “just have another child” or “just find a new partner.” And yet, people say the equivalent all the time after pet loss.

Rushing to replace the relationship instead of honoring what was lost overlooks what made that bond irreplaceable. Love isn’t interchangeable – and neither are the ones we lose.

So offer care that endures. Grief doesn’t follow a timeline. A check-in weeks or months later, whether it’s a heart emoji, a shared memory or a gentle reminder that they’re not alone, can remind someone that their grief is seen and their love still matters.

When people say nothing

People often don’t know what to say after a pet dies, so they say nothing. But silence doesn’t just bury grief, it isolates it. It tells the griever that their love was excessive, their sadness inconvenient, their loss unworthy of acknowledgment.

And grief that feels invisible can be the hardest kind to carry.

So if someone you love loses a pet, don’t change the subject. Don’t rush them out of their sadness. Don’t offer solutions.

Instead, here are a few other ways to offer support gently and meaningfully:

• Say their pet’s name.

• Ask what they miss most.

• Tell them you’re sorry.

• Let them cry.

• Let them not cry.

• Let them remember.

Because when someone loses a pet, they’re not “just” mourning an animal. They’re grieving for a relationship, a rhythm and a presence that made the world feel kinder. What they need most is someone willing to treat that loss like it matters.

Brian N. Chin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The 3 worst things you can say after a pet dies, and what to say instead – https://theconversation.com/the-3-worst-things-you-can-say-after-a-pet-dies-and-what-to-say-instead-258531

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Leslie Root, Assistant Professor of Research, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder

Pronatalism – the belief that low birth rates are a problem that must be reversed – is having a moment in the U.S.

As birth rates decline in the U.S. and throughout the world, voices from Silicon Valley to the White House are raising concerns about what they say could be the calamitous effects of steep population decline on the economy. The Trump administration has said it is seeking ideas on how to encourage Americans to have more children as the U.S. experiences its lowest total fertility rate in history, down about 25% since 2007.

As demographers who study fertility, family behaviors and childbearing intentions, we can say with certainty that population decline is not imminent, inevitable or necessarily catastrophic.

The population collapse narrative hinges on three key misunderstandings. First, it misrepresents what standard fertility measures tell us about childbearing and makes unrealistic assumptions that fertility rates will follow predictable patterns far into the future. Second, it overstates the impact of low birth rates on future population growth and size. Third, it ignores the role of economic policies and labor market shifts in assessing the impacts of low birth rates.

Fertility fluctuations

Demographers generally gauge births in a population with a measure called the total fertility rate. The total fertility rate for a given year is an estimate of the average number of children that women would have in their lifetime if they experienced current birth rates throughout their childbearing years.

Fertility rates are not fixed – in fact, they have changed considerably over the past century. In the U.S., the total fertility rate rose from about 2 births per woman in the 1930s to a high of 3.7 births per woman around 1960. The rate then dipped below 2 births per woman in the late 1970s and 1980s before returning to 2 births in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Since the Great Recession that lasted from late 2007 until mid-2009, the U.S. total fertility rate has declined almost every year, with the exception of very small post-COVID-19 pandemic increases in 2021 and 2022. In 2024, it hit a record low, falling to 1.6. This drop is primarily driven by declines in births to people in their teens and early 20s – births that are often unintended.

But while the total fertility rate offers a snapshot of the fertility landscape, it is not a perfect indicator of how many children a woman will eventually have if fertility patterns are in flux – for example, if people are delaying having children.

Picture a 20-year-old woman today, in 2025. The total fertility rate assumes she will have the same birth rate as today’s 40-year-olds when she reaches 40. That’s not likely to be the case, because birth rates 20 years from now for 40-year-olds will almost certainly be higher than they are today, as more births occur at older ages and more people are able to overcome infertility through medically assisted reproduction.

A more nuanced picture of childbearing

These problems with the total fertility rate are why demographers also measure how many total births women have had by the end of their reproductive years. In contrast to the total fertility rate, the average number of children ever born to women ages 40 to 44 has remained fairly stable over time, hovering around two.

Americans continue to express favorable views toward childbearing. Ideal family size remains at two or more children, and 9 in 10 adults either have, or would like to have, children. However, many Americans are unable to reach their childbearing goals. This seems to be related to the high cost of raising children and growing uncertainty about the future.

In other words, it doesn’t seem to be the case that birth rates are low because people are uninterested in having children; rather, it’s because they don’t feel it’s feasible for them to become parents or to have as many children as they would like.

The challenge of predicting future population size

Standard demographic projections do not support the idea that population size is set to shrink dramatically.

One billion people lived on Earth 250 years ago. Today there are over 8 billion, and by 2100 the United Nations predicts there will be over 10 billion. That’s 2 billion more, not fewer, people in the foreseeable future. Admittedly, that projection is plus or minus 4 billion. But this range highlights another key point: Population projections get more uncertain the further into the future they extend.

Predicting the population level five years from now is far more reliable than 50 years from now – and beyond 100 years, forget about it. Most population scientists avoid making such long-term projections, for the simple reason that they are usually wrong. That’s because fertility and mortality rates change over time in unpredictable ways.

The U.S. population size is also not declining. Currently, despite fertility below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, there are still more births than deaths. The U.S. population is expected to grow by 22.6 million by 2050 and by 27.5 million by 2100, with immigration playing an important role.

Will low fertility cause an economic crisis?

A common rationale for concern about low fertility is that it leads to a host of economic and labor market problems. Specifically, pronatalists argue that there will be too few workers to sustain the economy and too many older people for those workers to support. However, that is not necessarily true – and even if it were, increasing birth rates wouldn’t fix the problem.

As fertility rates fall, the age structure of the population shifts. But a higher proportion of older adults does not necessarily mean the proportion of workers to nonworkers falls.

For one thing, the proportion of children under age 18 in the population also declines, so the number of working-age adults – usually defined as ages 18 to 64 – often changes relatively little. And as older adults stay healthier and more active, a growing number of them are contributing to the economy. Labor force participation among Americans ages 65 to 74 increased from 21.4% in 2003 to 26.9% in 2023 — and is expected to increase to 30.4% by 2033. Modest changes in the average age of retirement or in how Social Security is funded would further reduce strains on support programs for older adults.

What’s more, pronatalists’ core argument that a higher birth rate would increase the size of the labor force overlooks some short-term consequences. More babies means more dependents, at least until those children become old enough to enter the labor force. Children not only require expensive services such as education, but also reduce labor force participation, particularly for women. As fertility rates have fallen, women’s labor force participation rates have risen dramatically – from 34% in 1950 to 58% in 2024. Pronatalist policies that discourage women’s employment are at odds with concerns about a diminishing number of workers.

Research shows that economic policies and labor market conditions, not demographic age structures, play the most important role in determining economic growth in advanced economies. And with rapidly changing technologies like automation and artificial intelligence, it is unclear what demand there will be for workers in the future. Moreover, immigration is a powerful – and immediate – tool for addressing labor market needs and concerns over the proportion of workers.

Overall, there’s no evidence for Elon Musk’s assertion that “humanity is dying.” While the changes in population structure that accompany low birth rates are real, in our view the impact of these changes has been dramatically overstated. Strong investments in education and sensible economic policies can help countries successfully adapt to a new demographic reality.

Leslie Root receives funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) for work on fertility rates.

Karen Benjamin Guzzo has received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the United States.

Shelley Clark receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Fears that falling birth rates in US could lead to population collapse are based on faulty assumptions – https://theconversation.com/fears-that-falling-birth-rates-in-us-could-lead-to-population-collapse-are-based-on-faulty-assumptions-261031

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kevin Johnson, Dean and Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o Studies, University of California, Davis

All modern U.S. presidents, both Republican and Democratic, have attempted to reduce the population of millions of undocumented immigrants. But their various strategies have not had significant results, with the population hovering around 11 million from 2005 to 2022.

President Donald Trump seeks to change that.

With harsh rhetoric that has sowed fear in immigrant communities, and policies that ignore immigrants’ due process rights, Trump has pursued deportation tactics that differ dramatically from those of any other modern U.S. president.

As a scholar who examines the history of U.S. immigration law and enforcement, I believe that it remains far from clear whether the Trump White House will significantly reduce the undocumented population. But even if the administration’s efforts fail, the fear and damage to the U.S. immigrant community will remain.

Presidents Bush and Obama

To increase deportations, in 2006 President George W. Bush began using workplace raids. Among these sweeps was the then-largest immigration workplace operation in U.S. history at a meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa in 2008.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deployed 900 agents in Postville and arrested 398 employees, 98% of whom were Latino. They were chained together and arraigned in groups of 10 for felony criminal charges of aggravated identity theft, document fraud and use of stolen Social Security numbers. Some 300 were convicted, and 297 of them served jail sentences before being deported.

In 2008, Bush also initiated Secure Communities, a policy that sought to deport noncitizens – both lawful permanent residents as well as undocumented immigrants – who had been arrested for crimes. Some 2 million immigrants were deported during Bush’s two terms in office.

The Obama administration limited Secure Communities to focus on the removal of noncitizens convicted of felonies. It deported a record 400,000 noncitizens in fiscal year 2013, which led detractors to refer to President Barack Obama as the “Deporter in Chief.”

Obama also targeted recent entrants and national security threats and pursued criminal prosecutions for illegal reentry to the U.S. Almost all of these policies built on Bush’s, although Obama virtually abandoned workplace raids.

Despite these enforcement measures, Obama also initiated Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, in 2012. The policy provided relief from deportation and gave work authorization to more than 500,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.

Obama deported about 3 million noncitizens, but the size of the undocumented population did not decrease dramatically.

The first Trump administration and Biden

Trump’s first administration broke new immigration enforcement ground in several ways.

He began his presidency by issuing what was called a “Muslim ban” to restrict the entry into the U.S. of noncitizens from predominantly Muslim nations.

Early in Trump’s first administration, federal agents expanded immigration operations to include raids at courthouses, which previously had been off-limits.

In 2017, Trump tried to rescind DACA, but the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s effort in 2020.

In 2019, Trump implemented the Remain in Mexico policy that for the first time forced noncitizens who came to the U.S. border seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while their claims were being decided. He also invoked Title 42 in 2020 to close U.S. borders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump succeeded in reducing legal immigration numbers during his first term. However, there is no evidence that his enforcement policies reduced the size of the overall undocumented population.

President Joe Biden sought to relax – although not abandon – some immigration enforcement measures implemented during Trump’s first term.

His administration slowed construction of the border wall championed by Trump. Biden also stopped workplace raids in 2021, and in 2023, he ended Title 42.

In 2023, Biden sought to respond to migration surges in a measured fashion, by temporarily closing ports of entry and increasing arrests.

In attempting to enforce the borders, his administration at times pursued tough measures. Biden continued deportation efforts directed at criminal noncitizens. Immigrant rights groups criticized his administration when armed Border Patrol officers on horseback were videotaped chasing Haitian migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.

As of 2022, the middle of the Biden’s term, an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants lived in the U.S.

A second chance

Since his second inauguration, Trump has pursued a mass deportation campaign through executive orders that are unprecedented in their scope.

In January 2025, he announced an expanded, expedited removal process for any noncitizen apprehended anywhere in the country – not just the border region, as had been U.S. practice since 1996.

In March, Trump issued a presidential proclamation to deport Venezuelan nationals who were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In doing so, he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – an act used three times in U.S. history during declared wars that empowers presidents to remove foreign nationals from countries at war with the U.S.

Declaring an “invasion” of migrants into the U.S. in June, Trump deployed the military to assist in immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.

Trump also sought to dramatically upend birthright citizenship, the Constitutional provision that guarantees citizenship to any person born in the U.S. He issued an executive order in January that would bar citizenship to people born in the U.S. to undocumented parents.

The birthright executive order has been challenged in federal court and is mostly likely working its way up to the Supreme Court.

Under the second Trump administration, immigration arrests are up, but actual deportation numbers are in flux.

ICE in June arrested the most people in a month in at least five years, roughly 30,000 immigrants. But deportations of noncitizens – roughly 18,000 – lagged behind those during the Obama administration’s record-setting year of 2013 in which more than 400,000 noncitizens were deported.

The gap between arrests and deportations shows the challenges the Trump administration faces in making good on his promised mass deportation campaign.

Undocumented immigrants often come to the U.S. to work or seek safety from natural disasters and mass violence.

These issues have not been seriously addressed by any modern U.S. president. Until it is, we can expect the undocumented population to remain in the millions.

Kevin Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Deportation tactics from 4 US presidents have done little to reduce the undocumented immigrant population – https://theconversation.com/deportation-tactics-from-4-us-presidents-have-done-little-to-reduce-the-undocumented-immigrant-population-261640

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brendan Cantwell, Associate Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

Columbia University agreed on July 23, 2025, to pay a US$200 million fine to the federal government and to settle allegations that it did not create a safe environment for Jewish students during Palestinian rights protests in 2024.

The deal will restore the vast majority of the $400 million in federal grants and contracts that Columbia was previously awarded, before the administration withdrew the funding in March 2025.

It marks the first financial and political agreement a university has reached with the Trump administration in its push for more control over higher education – and stands to have significant ripple effects for how other universities and colleges carry out their basic operations.

Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Brendan Cantwell, a scholar of higher education at Michigan State University, to understand what’s exactly in this agreement – and the lasting precedent it may set on government intervention in higher education.

What’s in the deal Columbia made with the Trump administration?

The agreement requires Columbia to make a $200 million payment to the federal government. Columbia will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Columbia will need to keep detailed statistics about student applicants – including their race and ethnicity, grades and SAT scores – as well as information about faculty and staff hiring decisions. Columbia will then have to share this data with the federal government.

In exchange, the federal government will release most of the $400 million in frozen grant money previously awarded to Columbia and allow faculty at the university to compete for future federal grants.

How does this deal address antisemitism?

The Trump administration has cited antisemitism against students and faculty on campuses to justify its broad incursion into the business of universities around the country.

Antisemitism is a real and legitimate concern in U.S. society and higher education, including at Columbia.

But the federal complaint the administration made against Columbia was not actually about antisemitism. The administration made a formal accusation of antisemitism at Columbia in May of this year but suspended grants to the university in March. The federal government had initially acknowledged that cutting federal research grants did nothing to address the climate for Jewish students on campus, for example.

When the federal government investigates civil rights violations, it usually conducts site visits and does very thorough investigations. We never saw such a government report about antisemitism at Columbia or other universities.

The settlement that Columbia has entered into with the administration also doesn’t do much about antisemitism.

The agreement includes Columbia redefining antisemitism with a broader definition that is also used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The definition now includes “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” – a description that is also used by the U.S. State Department and several European governments but some critics say conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism.

Instead, the agreement primarily has to do with faculty hiring and admissions decisions. The federal government alleges that Columbia is discriminating against white and Asian applicants, and that this will allow the government to ensure that everybody who is admitted is considered only on the basis of merit.

The administration could argue that changing hiring practices to get faculty who are less hostile to Jewish students could change the campus climate, but the agreement doesn’t really identify ways in which the university contributed to or ignored antisemitic conduct.

Is this a new issue?

There has been a long-running issue that conservatives and members of the Trump administration – dating back to his first term – have with higher education. The Trump administration and other conservatives have said for years that higher education is too liberal.

The protests were the flash point that put Columbia in the administration’s crosshairs, as well as claims that Columbia was creating a hostile environment for Jewish students.

The administration’s complaints aren’t limited to Columbia. Harvard is in a protracted conflict with the administration, and the administration has launched investigations into dozens of other schools around the country. These universities are butting heads with the administration over the same grievance that higher education is too liberal. There are also specific claims about antisemitism on university campuses and the privileges given to nonwhite students in admissions or campus life.

While the administration has a common set of complaints about a range of universities, there is a mix of schools that the administration is taking issue with. Some of them, such as Harvard, are very high profile. The Department of Justice forced out the president at the University of Virginia in January 2025 on the grounds that he had not done enough to root out diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the public university. The University of Virginia may have been a target for the administration because a Republican governor appointed most members of its governance board and agreed with Trump’s complaints.

How could this change the makeup of Columbia’s student population?

The Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that Harvard’s affirmative action program, which considered race in admissions, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This effectively ended race-based affirmative action for all U.S. colleges and universities.

Now, with the Columbia deal, the government could say that it would expect to see a proportion of students who are white increase and students who are Black and Latino to decrease at Columbia. That’s a legal approach that America First Legal, a conservative legal advocacy group founded by Stephen Miller, a Trump administration official, has already tried.

Back in February 2025, America First Legal alleged in a federal lawsuit that the University of California, Los Angeles, was using illegal admissions criteria, because of the number of Black and Latino students that were admitted by the school. That lawsuit is ongoing.

What does this agreement mean for US higher education as a whole?

It is an enormous, unprecedented shift in how the federal government works with higher education. Since the McCarthy era in the 1940s and ’50s, when professors were blacklisted and fired because of their alleged communism, Americans have not seen the federal government interrogate education.

The federal government does have a role in securing people’s civil rights, including in the context of higher education, but this is very, very different from how the federal government has done civil rights investigations and entered into agreements with universities in the past.

This agreement is very broad and gives the federal government oversight of things that have long been under universities’ control, such as whom they hire to teach and which students they admit.

The federal government is now saying it has the right to look over universities’ shoulders and guide them in this work that has long been considered independent. And the government is willing to be extremely coercive to get universities to comply.

What signal does this agreement send to other universities?

This agreement sets a precedent for the government to direct colleges and universities to comply with its political agenda. This violates the long tradition of academic independence that had helped to make the U.S. higher education system the envy of the world.

Columbia can afford paying $200 million to the federal government. Most universities can’t afford to pay $200 million.

And most campuses cannot survive without federal resources, whether that comes in the form of student financial aid or research grants. This agreement sets a standard for other universities that, if they don’t immediately do what the federal government wants them to do, the government could impose penalties that are so high it could end their ability to operate.

Brendan Cantwell is a Professor in the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University.

– ref. Columbia’s $200M deal with Trump administration sets a precedent for other universities to bend to the government’s will – https://theconversation.com/columbias-200m-deal-with-trump-administration-sets-a-precedent-for-other-universities-to-bend-to-the-governments-will-261902

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jennifer Raynor, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Marine protected areas cover more than 8% of the world’s oceans today, but they can get a bad rap as being protected on paper only.

While the name invokes safe havens for fish, whales and other sea life, these areas can be hard to monitor. High-profile violations, such as recent fishing fleet incursions near the Galapagos Islands and ships that “go dark” by turning off their tracking devices, have fueled concerns about just how much poaching is going undetected.

But some protected areas are successfully keeping illegal fishing out.

In a new global study using satellite technology that can track large ships even if they turn off their tracking systems, my colleagues and I found that marine protected areas where industrial fishing is fully banned are largely succeeding at preventing poaching.

What marine protected areas aim to save

Picture a sea turtle gliding by as striped butterfly fish weave through coral branches. Or the deep blue of the open ocean, where tuna flash like silver and seabirds wheel overhead.

These habitats, where fish and other marine life breed and feed, are the treasures that marine protected areas aim to protect.

A major threat to these ecosystems is industrial fishing.

These vessels can operate worldwide and stay at sea for years at a time with visits from refrigerated cargo ships that ferry their catch to port. China has an extensive global fleet of ships that operate as far away as the coast of South America and other regions.

The global industrial fishing fleet – nearly half a million vessels – hauls in about 100 million metric tons of seafood each year. That’s about a fivefold increase since 1950, though it has been close to flat for the past 30 years. Today, more than one-third of commercial fish species are overfished, exceeding what population growth can replenish.

When well designed and enforced, marine protected areas can help to restore fish populations and marine habitats. My previous work shows they can even benefit nearby fisheries because the fish spill over into surrounding areas.

That’s why expanding marine protected areas is a cornerstone of international conservation policy. Nearly every country has pledged to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030.

Big promises – and big doubts

But what “protection” means can vary.

Some marine protected areas ban industrial fishing. These are the gold standard for conservation, and research shows they can be effective ways to increase the amount of sea life and diversity of species.

However, most marine protected areas don’t meet that standard. While governments report that more than 8% of the global ocean is protected, only about 3% is actually covered by industrial fishing bans. Many “protected” areas even allow bottom trawling, one of the most destructive fishing practices, although regulations are slowly changing.

The plentiful fish in better-protected areas can also attract poachers. In one high-profile case, a Chinese vessel was caught inside the Galápagos Marine Reserve with 300 tons of marine life, including 6,000 dead sharks, in 2017. This crew faced heavy fines and prison time. But how many others go unseen?

Shining a light on the ‘dark fleet’

Much of what the world knows about global industrial fishing comes from the automatic identification system, or AIS, which many ships are required to use. This system broadcasts their location every few seconds, primarily to reduce the risk of collisions at sea. Using artificial intelligence, researchers can analyze movement patterns in these messages to estimate when and where fishing is happening.

But AIS has blind spots. Captains can turn it off, tamper with data or avoid using it entirely. Coverage is also spotty in busy areas, such as Southeast Asia.

New satellite technologies are helping to see into those blind spots. Synthetic aperture radar can detect vessels even when they’re not transmitting AIS. It works by sending radar pulses to the ocean surface and measuring what bounces back. Paired with artificial intelligence, it reveals previously invisible activity.

Synthetic aperture radar still has limits – primarily difficulty detecting small boats and less frequent coverage than AIS – but it’s still a leap forward. In one study of coastal areas using both technologies, we found in about 75% of instances fishing vessels detected by synthetic aperture radar were not being tracked by AIS.

New global analysis shows what really happens

Two studies published in the journal Science on July 24, 2025, use these satellite datasets to track industrial fishing activity in marine protected areas.

Our study looked just at those marine protected areas where all industrial fishing is explicitly banned by law.

We combined AIS vessel tracking, synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery, official marine protected area rules, and implementation dates showing exactly when those bans took effect. The analysis covers nearly 1,400 marine protected areas spanning about 3 million square miles (7.9 million square kilometers) where industrial fishing is explicitly prohibited.

The results were striking:

• Most of these protected areas showed little to no signs of industrial fishing.

• We detected about five fishing vessels per 100,000 square kilometers on average in these areas, compared to 42 on average in unprotected coastal areas.

• 96% had less than one day per year of alleged illegal fishing effort.

The second study uses the same AIS and synthetic aperture radar data to examine a broader set of marine protected areas – including many that explicitly allow fishing. They document substantial fishing activity in these areas, with about eight times more detections than in the protected areas that ban industrial fishing.

Combined, these two studies lead to a clear conclusion: Marine protected areas with weak regulations see substantial industrial fishing, but where bans are in place, they’re largely respected.

We can’t tell whether these fishing bans are effective because they’re well enforced or simply because they were placed where little fishing happened anyway. Still, when violations do occur, this system offers a way for enforcement agencies to detect them.

A reason for optimism

These technological advances in vessel tracking have the potential to reshape marine law enforcement by significantly reducing the costs of monitoring.

Agencies such as national navies and coast guards no longer need to rely solely on costly physical patrols over huge areas. With tools such as the Global Fishing Watch map, which makes vessel tracking data freely available to the public, they can monitor activity remotely and focus patrol efforts where they’re needed most.

That can also have a deterrent effect. In Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park, evidence of illegal fishing activity decreased substantially after the rollout of satellite and radar-based vessel tracking. Similar efforts are strengthening enforcement in the Galapagos Islands and Mexico’s Revillagigedo National Park.

Beyond marine protected areas, these technologies also have the potential to support tracking a broad range of human activities, such as oil slicks and deep-sea mining, making companies more accountable in how they use the ocean.

Jennifer Raynor receives funding from National Geographic Pristine Seas. She is a trustee at Global Fishing Watch, one of the primary data providers for this study.

– ref. We tracked illegal fishing in marine protected areas – satellites and AI show most bans are respected, and could help enforce future ones – https://theconversation.com/we-tracked-illegal-fishing-in-marine-protected-areas-satellites-and-ai-show-most-bans-are-respected-and-could-help-enforce-future-ones-252800