Bluefin Satellite Tag Hunt

Low Fog kisses the Highlands along the Cabot Trail

Place yourself for a moment in the office of a tuna tagging scientist staring at a map with a GPS location of a popped-off mini-PAT satellite tag.  The tag had been attached to a Giant Bluefin Tuna for the past 10 months, and it contains a virtual diary of its movements, behaviours and environments encountered.  The tag is sending a summary of the tuna’s story to a satellite which relays it to your computer.  This summary data is like reading the first and final chapter of a novel and the story line on the back cover.  It’s valuable and you get the highlights and main point of it all, but you feel cheated somehow, especially after you spent weeks travelling and fishing to tag the tuna in the first place. If you can get the tag back, you can download the entire "story".

A lot of tags pop off far from shore, well beyond reach of an inshore vessel’s range.  So what happens when a tag comes to the surface 15 kms from shore?  And 25 kms from the nearest port where you know a local fisher who has a boat at the dock?  You scramble; you email, call and coordinate a recovery as fast as humanly possible…and then you pray, for good weather, calm seas and good visibility.  On Wednesday, this week, such an event happened.  Although I wasn’t the scientist staring at the map of the first GPS location, early Thursday morning...I was the scientist along with a Honours student from Acadia University rushing to the dock to jump on board the ‘Mary Heather’ captained by TAG-A-GIANT’s Captain Lloyd MacInnes based out of Little River, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The search for the tag begins

Finding a tag the size of an egg with a thin black antenna sticking out would be an ok Easter-egg-hunt on land. However, throw in waves, a large area, a GPS location that is hours old, and the fact that the tag is floating with only the antenna peaking out, all of a sudden the easter egg hunt isn't quite as easy. That’s where Seth Newall, a Honours student from Acadia University comes in.  He brought a "tag locator" with him, which picks up the specific frequency of the tag and allows us to home in on the signal.  It’s a lot like playing ‘hot-cold’ as a kid, except you’re still looking for a black, half-submerged tag within 300 to 50 m of the boat.  So with Captain Lloyd at the helm spinning circles and squiggles on his chart display, Seth relaying signal strength of the tag, and myself standing on the cabin roof searching the water, we played that very game.  It was bit foggy, but relatively calm, no breaking waves or chop.  With help texts coming from TAG-A-GIANT’s Robbie Schallert in Texas, we honed our rookie skills using the tag locator.  Seth’s signal strength got stronger as the search continued.  After 3 hours of playing hide-and-seek, I spotted the black egg with antenna sticking straight up, 20 m off the port bow.

“I got it!” I yelled out, “10 o’clock! 60 feet off the port side!”

“I see it!” confirmed Captain Lloyd.

“Seth, grab the dip net while I keep an eye on it!” I instructed.

Captain Lloyd had the boat alongside the tag within seconds.  He wasn’t waiting for a dip net.  He had a deck-brush in hand and was frantically sweeping the tag closer to the boat.  Seth netted our find and with that, we had in hand the day-to-day story of one Bluefin.

Relieved Capt. with the tag

Close up of the Wildlife Computers miniPAT

Steaming back to port, the sun broke through the fog to illuminate the sea’s surface and rocky cliffs onshore, yet the lush green mountain tops of Cape Breton’s Highlands remained covered.  A pod of white-sided dolphins broke the surface and a puffin dove under upon the Mary Heather’s approach.  Some gifts in view while others remained out of sight, a fitting summary to our search’s conclusion.

Acadia Team with the tag safely secured!!

-          Written by Aaron Spares, Acadia University Coastal Ecology Lab 

TAG Canada 2014

TAG Canada is underway. A team from Stanford, Monterey Bay Aquarium and Acadia University  led by Dr. Steve Wilson, Robbie Schallert and Dr. Mike Stokebury are tagging giants in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada. Tuna are being tagged with sophisticated miniPAT tags and long-term acoustic tags, with a goal of understanding how these bluefin utilize the Gulf of Mexico spawning area closures. This is the 7th year the TAG, MBA, Stanford team has been in Canada- and the 145th tuna in Canadian waters to receive these high tech tags.  Some new accelerometry tags are also being tested in an effort supported by ONR, to determine how fast a giant bluefin goes.

IGFA Great Marlin Race Gets Off to a Roaring Start

Today marks the opening day of the 55th Annual Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. It is also the sixth year for the Great Marlin Race, which was launched here in celebration of the HIBT's 50th Anniversary.

As the teams started arriving at the "Shouting Room" (a giant open-air tent where the angling teams assemble before and after fishing), the IGFA's Eric Combast and I knew that we had our work cut out for us. We had lined up sponsors for 4-1/2 of the 10 tags we had with us, and being optimists, we brought 6 down.

Within minutes, Whangaroa Billfish Club's Keith Allan stepped forward and offered to sponsor a tag to send out with his lovely wife Janice. I was happy to oblige, and glad to have their continued support in this year's race.

I set up tags for Rocky Franich from the Pajaro Valley Game Fish Club, Ralph Czabayski of the Game Fishing Club of South Australia, and last year's winning team of Mitchell and Marty Firestein, who are fishing this year as part of the Laguna Niguel Billfish Club.

Marty Firestein shows off his new IGMR lure while Mitch looks on.

I had the pleasure of getting on Humdinger with co-founders of the Great Marlin Race, Bob and Sally Kurz, also with Laguna Niguel. It was just coming up on 10 AM when a nice 250 lb. blue came up on the short rigger. Sally was in the chair and watched this great fish grayhound across the surface about 50 yards off the stern. Once she dove, though, the fight was on. Sally settled in for a tough battle, gaining only six inches of line at a time. 

Sally Kurz battles a nice blue while husband Bob (left) and deckhand Brett Fay (right) provide support. 

After more than an hour, deckhand Brett Fay leadered the marlin alongside the boat, setting up Bob Kurz for a perfect shot with the tag. Moments later she was away, swimmimng strong.

As it turned out, this was actually the second satellite deployed so far today - the first being the one Keith Allan sponsored this morning, which was placed on a marlin while Sally was battling hers.

This is a fantastic start to the event, and hopefully marks the beginning of a great week. Keep checking back! 

Success in Chagos!

Team Chagos, composed of scientists from our very own TRCC, Australia and the UK have completed their deployments of new Vemco receivers and Wildlife Computers satellite tags.

Today we have completed the installation of a network of underwater receivers that will provide both real time updates and the capacity to monitor this - the largest Marine Protected Coral Reef Atoll in the world. Our "Wired Ocean" concept is now allowing the international team to follow the reef ecosystem in real time, and over the next decade.  The first ocean observation devices have also been installed providing oxygen and temperature measurements that should enable initiation of long term climate data.

Thanks to our the crew and the scientists, along with the Bertarelli Foundation and Rolex, for helping to make this transfer of technology happen!

Deployments are Under Way in Chagos

Dr. Taylor Chapple (right) tests a newly-placed buoy

The team is deploying and testing a series of buoys capable of detecting tagged sharks and uplinking to orbiting Iridium satellites. These buoys are large and challenging to install in this remote location.

With back up assistance from Amirix and back and forth with our California team, Dr. Taylor Chapple, Robbie Schallert and  the multi-national expedition have succeeded in deploying and testing these biological ocean observation tools. Now as sharks swim by, we will be able to monitor their movements at two points - moving in and out of the largest atoll in the world, Peros Banhos.

At other locations we have placed four underwater VR4 UM monitors that will provide the capacity to monitor and uplink shark movements to a surface modem.

Aaron Carlisle, Dave Tickler, John Dale,  and the crew have worked together to place 44 underwater monitors that are “marine animal detectors” at key locations between two atolls (Peros Banhos and Salamon Islands) providing extensive coverage of the region.

Expedition Chagos - March 23

Aaron and Dave working hard

The team in the Chagos (scientists from Stanford, University of Western Australia, London Zoological Society) have had a very successful research trip thus far- placing over 30 acoustic tags in sharks, and recovering the data from an extensive VR2w network we placed in the Chagos over a year ago. The great news is the receivers have recorded excellent data. 

Currently the team is at Salomon Atoll, where we’re recovering a VR4 Global, to rebattery and reposition, and then placing VR4 Ums near the Channel. Our on board team has been very successful tagging grey reef sharks and silvertips. They report easily placing the acoustic tags into 10 sharks over at Salomon Atoll and 20 over at Peros Banhos.  The placement of the tags at the two atolls, separated by over 30 km, will help discern the connectivity between the two regions. VR4 Globals, which have been in place for over a year, are now getting fresh batteries, new flotation collars and beefed-up moorings. Soon we’ll be hearing from these shark in the Indian ocean. 

The arrival of the tagging gear was a celebrated event

Expedition Chagos - March 24

A "shark-eye" view of the reef, from a camera on a grey reef shark

Dr. Taylor Chapple and team have successfully deployed the CATS camera tag on a grey reef shark and the view below of the Chagos is stunning! These tags are put on for short durations by attachment to the dorsal fins. The grey reef has recorded several hours of footage and this snapshot provides a “shark-eye” view of the coral paradise called home.

(L-R) Dave Tickler, Aaron Carlisle and Taylor Chapple on the fantail