Up to one million marine creatures will be tagged to track their movements around the world, under an ambitious Canadian plan. The aim is to reveal more about the lives of fish in order to help protect them from overfishing, as well as monitor climate change in the oceans.
The acoustic tags will relay information to lines of sensors on the ocean floor, but can also receive data from other tags. This is so that fish swimming out of range of the sensors can still provide data. When one of the fish comes back within range of a receiver, the tag will transmit the information from all the tagged fish it has been in contact with.
“This is the BlackBerry for fish. Every fish will be able to talk to every other fish and when they get home they will report the data to one of the receivers,” said Ron O’Dor, from Dalhousie University, Halifax, where the (OTN) is based. The tags also measure the depth, temperature and salinity of the water the fish is swimming through.
On Monday, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) announced it was giving C$45 million ($38 million) to help significantly expand the OTN, which is currently running two pilot projects on the west coast of the US and Canada.
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Ensuring survival
Scientists from the project say that since the advent of industrialised fishing in the 1950s, there has been a 90% drop in the population of large oceanic fish such as bluefin tuna and giant blue marlin (also see No more seafood by 2050?). Learning more about the lives of fish and their surroundings would help governments ensure their continued survival, the team said.
“The knowledge OTN generates will transform conservation and fisheries management practices,” said Eliot Phillipson, president of the CFI. The Canadian funding was needed to unlock funds from other donors to pay for the C$160 million six-year project.
The eventual goal is to create a network of 5000 sensors in 14 ocean regions tracking up to one million animals. Larger animals such as tuna would be monitored via satellite.
The plan is to attach small tagging devices with embedded microchips to fish, sharks, penguins and turtles. The tags vary from the size of an almond to an AA battery and can be implanted or fastened to fins.
