“Duke Marine Lab would like to establish a permanent large ocean fish tagging programâ€, said lab director Mike Orbach. “It will take money, but it is a goal,†he said.
Duke Marine Lab is the East Coast base for Tag a Giant, a tuna research program headquartered at Stanford University's Tuna Research Conservation Center.
Program director Barbara Block has obtained funding to bring a team of scientists to Duke every year to work with North Carolina's charter boat fleet to tag bluefin tuna.
“They've got a 95 percent return rate from this tagging,†Orbach said. “Scientists tracked one tuna that was tagged in North Carolina on a two-year migration that spanned from Flemish Cap near Iceland to the Canary Islands in the Mediterraneanâ€, he said. “Because the tags measure body temperature, water temperature, water depth and light sensitivity, scientists can track a tuna is and know when it dives and eatsâ€, Orbach said.
“When charter boat fishermen find they have a bluefin tuna weighing more than 400 pounds on the line, they call Duke, which sends a specially equipped boat with veterinarians on board who can surgically implant the electronic tag. The process is called a ‘handoff’. The fishermen literally hand the fishing line over to the Duke boat and let the scientist take overâ€, informed Orbach.
â€Duke has plans to break ground this spring on a new environmentally friendly building that could house Tag A Giant, along with other similar tracking and research programsâ€, Orbach said.
â€With expensive tags and a full compliment of scientists and veterinarians, it would probably take $1 million a year to run Tag A Giant full-timeâ€, Orbach said.