The Marine Institute's Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research will continue an Atlantic cod satellite-tagging project with the help of $50,000 in funding from the provincial government, it was announced today.
The research, co-ordinated by Dr. George Rose, will continue this fall in the Bonavista Corridor.
According to a news release, satellite tags store latitude and longitude, depth and temperature data for one year or more, measured each hour, then release themselves from the fish and transmit their data via satellite back to a research station.
Each tag costs approximately $4,000, which includes the data reception from the satellite and the initial processing.
Funding provided in 2010 was used to purchase approximately 14 satellite tags and to develop the method in which they would be used.
The project was completed during the RV Celtic Explorer survey last spring.
Today’s funding will allow the purchase of 10 to 12 more satellite tags and the data reception costs. Rose and his team will deploy the tags during the spring and summer of 2013 aboard the RV Celtic Explorer and the RV Gecho II.
“Satellite tags are a new technology that has become an invaluable tool for researchers in studying the behavior and inshore/offshore migration patterns of fish species such as Atlantic cod,” said Tom Brown, administrative director, Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research.
“We welcome the opportunity to expand our satellite tagging project allowing us to gather even more data about Atlantic cod and the ecosystem in which it lives.”
Derrick Dalley, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, said the success of the experiment so far, and its potential to unravel some of the distribution and migration mysteries about Atlantic Cod, is a sound investment in the future of the province’s groundfish industry.
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