The colored vessel tracks visible on the GFW map viewer ( map.globalfishingwatch.org ) are not currently exposed through any public API endpoint. The /v3/vessels/{id}/tracks endpoint returns 422 ("dataset should be a tracks:* type") for every dataset name available to standard public-API tokens. The available workarounds — the AIS presence dataset via /4wings/report with spatial-aggregation=false (great, but cell-quantized to ~0.01° centroids) and the Events API (only behavioral hotspots: port visits, fishing, loitering, encounters) — cover a lot of ground but cannot reconstruct continuous per-vessel trajectories. Use cases this would unlock: Underwater noise exposure modeling around marine protected areas, hydrophone stations, and coastal communities Vessel-strike risk assessment for cetaceans Ground-truthing AIS gaps against alternative position sources Reproducing what's already visible on the public map viewer for scientific publication Even a rate-limited or coarser-cadence tracks endpoint (e.g., 1 position per 15 min) for research-tier users would be transformative. We're happy to write up methods crediting GFW and contribute to the impact-story library.
