Chile is the second largest famred salmon producer after Norway, and Trusal SA is a leading aquaculture firm in Puerto Montt, Chile.
Chile experiences up to $2 million a year in theft of salmon and salmon eggs. With 28 salmon pools and a total perimeter of 8,000sq m, Trusal runs one of the country’s major fish farms and was suffering significant losses from intruders, fishing boats and predators. Since installing ioimage’s video analytics, thefts have been reduced by 75 per cent and manpower by 30 per cent.
Several logistical issues had to be taken into consideration in selecting an effective security system that would also minimise the incidence of false alarms.
“The layout of the sprawling property makes a perimeter fence unfeasible,” said partner and installer Andres Dieterich, project manager of technology and systems. “The solution had to be capable of detecting intrusion by boats and unauthorised persons, while differentiating between marine predators and harmless small animals entering the perimeter.”
Since surveillance was to be carried out over both land and sea, variable environmental factors such as precipitation and wind velocity needed to be addressed as well.
“Ioimage offered the only solution that could deal with all of these problems with a single installation,” said Dieterich. “It gives us a high level of security in a complex setting with an exceptionally low false alarm rate. Some salmon farms utilize radar technology, which is ineffective without video verification. The ioimage system has reduced the need for operator attention to a monitor, enabling security staff to attend to other functions. In addition, installation was easy and the service has been excellent.”
