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Subject: Codfish tagging program

Author:
Ed

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Date Posted: 923369759PDT

Info Posted on the S.T.A. board by Randall Holman

3/29/99 London, U.K. -- British government scientists are attaching miniature computers to codfish in a �55,000 tagging program researchers hope will help them understand more about the North Sea groundfish.

Two-inch, cylindrical tags will be attached to the backs of cod and provide as many as 500,000 bits of data on water temperature, ambient daylight and the depths at which the fish swim. Indeed, scientists at the Center for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture will be able to fix the positions of tagged fish at different times.

The Ministry of Agriculture wants to use information collected by the tags, which cost �800 each, to develop ways to conserve stocks.

"Cod stocks in the North Sea have been in decline for a long time, but the causes of this are complicated," said Elliot Morley, the fisheries minister, in praise of the program.

British consumers prefer cod to other species, but numbers of the fish have declined substantially in recent years.

Fishermen and scientists know that cod use the North Sea's strong tidal currents to cover the large distances between spawning and feeding grounds and have already begun tagging fish off East Anglia, which are starting to migrate to the north.

Scientists are depending on fishermen to return tags, for which the ministry will pay �25 plus the market value of any fish turned in. They know full well they may never see many of the tags again, but as project leader Julian Metcalfe says, "We should get enough information from the tags we do recover."

Meanwhile, a new generation of tags is being developed, which will separate from the fish and rise to the surface, broadcasting information to be picked up by satellite. Eventually, these tags could be used to track other species, like halibut, tuna and shark.

"The tags don't seem to bother the fish at all," said Metcalfe.

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