How Havoc Is Helping South Carolina Explore New Ways to Track a Recovering Cobia Population

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) manages fish and wildlife across the state's coastal and inland waters, including a genetically distinct population of cobia that returns each year to spawn in the Broad River estuary—the tidal waters where the Broad River meets the Atlantic Ocean. To support the agency's efforts to better understand and rebuild that population, SCDNR and Havoc are collaborating

• Partner: South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR)
• Industry: Fisheries Management & Marine Conservation
• Project Goal: Evaluate whether autonomous vessels can improve the detection and tracking of tagged fish across a large, complex estuary.
• Approach: Testing autonomous vessels operating as a mobile acoustic receiver network.

A Unique Population Under Pressure

Cobia are found in fisheries around the world, but South Carolina is home to a genetically distinct population that migrates into the Broad River estuary each year to spawn.

Years of fishing pressure have significantly reduced that population. According to Jason Broach of SCDNR, the agency has implemented supplemental stocking and other management measures to help rebuild it.

To make informed management decisions, SCDNR needs a much clearer picture of how cobia move throughout the estuary—where they travel, when they move, and how they use the habitat throughout the year.

"That's where something like this project with Havoc is going to come in handy—understanding more of their daily and seasonal movement patterns."
— Jason Broach, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources

SCDNR and its partner agencies have tagged cobia and other species for years, but the Broad River estuary is large, dynamic, and difficult to monitor using traditional methods. Locating tagged fish consistently across such a complex environment has remained a persistent challenge.

Evaluating Autonomous Vessels as a Mobile Fish Gate

Through this pilot effort, Havoc is applying its autonomous vessel platform, Rampage—designed for persistent, wide-area sensing—to explore a new approach to fisheries monitoring.

Chris Lane, who leads commercial business development at Havoc, explains that the SCDNR teams have historically struggled to relocate tagged fish given the size and complexity of the estuary. The project is evaluating whether autonomous vessels equipped with onboard acoustic receivers can operate as a mobile "fish gate," detecting tagged fish as they move through the water.

Before expanding testing to live cobia across the broader estuary, the team first needed to validate that the system itself was working as intended—that receivers were positioned correctly, tuned to the appropriate depths, and reliably detecting acoustic signals. Rather than relying solely on live tagged fish during these early tests, Havoc borrowed a range tag from SCDNR's shark research team and deployed it alongside several strategically placed tags to verify system performance.

"All of the tags coming together will help us be able to track different species and different fish more efficiently."
— Chris Lane, Commercial Business Development, Havoc

Testing is ongoing, and the project will help determine how autonomous vessels can complement existing fisheries research and acoustic tagging programs.

A Model That Could Extend Well Beyond Cobia

If successful, the work being evaluated in the Broad River estuary could help inform how fisheries agencies monitor a wide range of species beyond cobia.

Broach sees potential applications not only for additional marine species, but also for freshwater fisheries management across South Carolina. More broadly, the project could demonstrate an approach that other U.S. and global resource agencies and conservation organizations may be able to adapt to their own monitoring programs.

By combining autonomous, persistent vessel operations with the acoustic tagging programs fisheries agencies already maintain, Havoc and SCDNR are exploring a new way to address a longstanding data gap. The project offers an early look at how autonomous maritime technology may help researchers monitor challenging environments more efficiently while supporting the long-term stewardship of fisheries and aquatic ecosystems.