Why the deck, not the desk, decides this one
The short answer: will AI replace hunting workers and commercial fishers? Not in the way the question usually implies. Most of this job happens on a moving boat, in brush, or at a gutting table. Setting and hauling gear, untangling a net, cleaning and icing a catch, tracking and handling game, fixing a winch when the weather turns — that work needs hands, balance and judgment in the same place at the same time.
Our figures put 85% of task time in the group that still needs a person. That is not a claim about skill. It is a claim about where the work sits. Software can read a sonar return. It cannot stand in a swell and decide the set is wrong.
The second reason is variety. Two trips are rarely alike. Tides, stock, ice, fuel, permits and crew all move at once. Systems that automate well tend to repeat a stable task thousands of times. This job repeats a pattern, not a task.
What software handles, what it assists, and what it leaves
The group marked as something AI can do covers 0% of task time. These are the clerical edges: keeping logs of catch weights and locations, and filing the reports that licenses and quotas require. That paperwork moved to apps and electronic reporting systems long before anyone called it AI.
The assist group is 15% of task time. This is where the real change is happening. Sonar and chartplotters narrow where to look. Weather models shape whether to sail. Camera and sensor systems help monitor gear and bycatch. The decision stays with the skipper and crew; the information gets better. Overall coverage — our estimate of task time AI can handle today — sits at 8 out of 100. The coverage method page explains how that is built.
Everything else stays with people: the physical handling of gear and animals, the repairs made at sea with what is on board, and the calls about when to stop. Those tasks are the bulk of the day.
Good to know: better fish-finding technology can raise the catch per trip without reducing the number of hands needed to work the gear.
How strong is the evidence?
Thin, and we say so. Our evidence grade for quality parity here is D. That bottom grade means one thing: nobody has tested a machine against a working fisher or hunter on these tasks, so we give no parity number at all. Guessing one would be worse than leaving it blank.
What would settle it is specific. A timed trial of an uncrewed vessel setting, hauling and clearing a net in open water. A robot sorting and dressing a mixed catch at commercial speed. A field test of autonomous gear recovery in bad conditions. Until something like that is published, the honest position is “not measured.” Our quality parity method sets out how grades A to D are assigned, and the full approach is on the methodology page.
Official projections point a different way from the automation story. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment in this occupation falling about 4.2% between 2025 and 2035 (BLS, 2025). The usual pressures behind that are stock limits, fuel and vessel costs, consolidation and quota rules — not software.
When this could change
Most likely after 2046 (8 in 10 of our scenarios). For what that window measures and how it is built, see the replacement-year method.
Two things could pull it earlier. First, uncrewed and lightly crewed vessels moving from research and survey work into commercial harvesting, with deck machinery that sets and retrieves gear on its own. Second, a real drop in the price of dexterous mobile robots that can work wet, cold and tilting surfaces — the hardware class this job would need, covered in our guide to humanoid robots and physical jobs.
Two things hold it back. Marine-grade equipment is expensive to buy, insure and maintain, and salt water destroys anything delicate; most vessels are small businesses with thin margins. And the regulatory side — licensing, observer requirements, safety rules and the limits on who may take a wild animal — assumes a responsible person is present. Changing that takes legislatures, not model releases.
How to stay needed in this job
Lean into the parts that do not move. Gear work and repair: being the crew member who can splice, weld, patch and get a winch running again. Catch handling and quality: bleeding, icing and grading so the product earns a premium. Judgment at sea: reading conditions, choosing grounds and calling off a trip before it becomes a rescue.
Two skills pay off alongside those. One is electronics literacy — getting real value out of sonar, plotters, electronic logbooks and monitoring cameras rather than tolerating them. The other is the licensing and business side: permits, quota, cost control and direct sales. That is how deckhands become owners.
Nearby work worth looking at, if you want more stability or a shore-based route:
- First-Line Supervisors of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers — the crew-leading step up.
- Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals — close animal-handling work, including aquaculture.
- Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels — licensed vessel operation.
Our headline figure for this occupation is 84 out of 100 (higher is safer). To see where that sits against the rest of the field, browse the farming, fishing and forestry family, the agriculture sector, or the list of jobs that mostly need a person. You can also put this job next to another on the compare page.