Tuna tracking (or I need a CC to take me to the Flemish Cap!)

[Mr. Sandman]

I got this image from another site but it is truely remarkable. I have read a couple of Dr. Block papers and she is doing some great work. If you google Dr. Block Stanford tuna you will find a bunch of interesting stuff about tracking these great fish. She has lots of great plots of tuna tracking if you look around.

The image below is the path from a single fish. As I understand it, it was tagged off NC and it swam to the flemish and cruised the region then it went to the med, the mid atlantic then to the bahamas, the next year it went back to the flemish cap again. (I gotta go there sometime in my life!) Then it went back to the med, where it was trapped, they get the tag reward and Dr. Block goes to the med dives on the fish and removes the tag and lets it go free. Amazing eh?

[quick decision]

PERFERCT STORM!

[tynan19]

That is amazing.

[Flaptail]

Complex animal for sure. Problem is I hear there is little or no protection on them when they get to the Mediterenean.

I guess when you have no swim bladder and have to maintain at least 3 knots of speed to keep sufficient oxygen across your gills you can do a lot of travelling.

Cool, thanks for sharing this!

[Duke41]

could you direct me to the site please?

[goosefish]

My brother worked on a purse seiner in the med. He was tuna ranching over there: Catch tuna, bring tuna to a net pen, feed the tuna for months until its fat content is right, then sell.
They certainly have some managment issues in the med--too many nations fishing a small sea. French, Italians, Spanish..............

[Steve K]

I just saw this program on PBS called Deep Crisis. Talks a lot about the travels of tagged bluefin tuna. Definitely worth watching.

http://www.pbs.org/saf/1306/resources/transcript.htm

[MarshCappa]

Cool info. They are amazing fish.

[EricM]

Great read, thanks!

[FittyPoundah]

Very cool, The way the tuna was darting all over the flemish cap is amazing, imagine the line he took amongst thousands of other fish!

[blue oyster]

busy fish , very cool tracking

[likwid]

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/...uefintuna.html

[choggieman]

The management of bluefin tuna in general is one of the most corrupt businesses in the world. Pure greed will destroy the very small stocks we have left. The japanese and the europeans will see to the decimation of tuna in the name of money. Not that the western african countries are not helping. ICCAT sucks and cannot manage the tuna stocks with so much corruption. I hope that studies like this help, but it seems to be too little too late.