OT: Fish With Chips
- From: "Doug Kanter" <ancientangler@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 15:02:42 GMT
>From CNN:
'Fish with chips' reveal migration routes
OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- Thousands of salmon, tuna and other fish with
electronic tags are revealing mysterious Pacific Ocean migration highways
that may give clues about how to rebuild dwindling stocks, scientists said
Wednesday.
Marine experts also found 78 new species of fish in 2005 along with scores
of other creatures ranging from a 10-foot rocket-shaped jellyfish in the
Arctic Ocean to a tiny carnivorous sponge in the South Atlantic.
"Fish with chips" -- hi-tech implants that enable either satellite or seabed
tracking -- were one of the breakthroughs to uncover ocean migration paths,
said scientists in the 73-nation Census of Marine Life, or COML.
One bluefin tuna swam the Pacific three times in 600 days according to
satellite records -- an enormous 24,850 miles or the distance around the
world. That indicated that Japanese and American tuna stocks were one and
the same.
"Our studies show that the oceans are a much more complex system than we
thought," said Fred Grassle, chair of the COML steering committee. The
census aims to document the oceans as part of efforts to protect marine
resources.
Separately, 2,700 salmon were implanted with electronic chips the size of a
little fingernail, up from 1,050 in 2004, that are tracked by seabed
stations off North America to see where they go after leaving the rivers in
which they are born.
"Until now salmon have just vanished into the big black box of the ocean,"
said David Welch, lead scientist of the project of monitoring stations
covering 960 miles from Washington state to Alaska.
"Salmon stocks have dropped precipitously and this may help us find out
why," he said.
The listening arrays will be extended along the entire North American coast
by 2010.
Many salmon hugged the continental shelf and fish born in the same river
often followed similar routes, Welch said.
In the future, trawlers could be ordered to haul in nets if scientists could
pinpoint when shoals of endangered salmon were swimming past.
"These tracking systems could be spread worldwide," said Ron O'Dor, chief
scientist of COML.
One plan is to set up seabed monitors for eels and tuna across the entrance
of the Mediterranean, while others could track salmon off Europe.
Apart from salmon, about 1,838 animals -- including sharks, turtle, tuna,
sea lions and birds -- have devices that report in by satellite when they go
near the surface. The numbers are up by 50 percent from 2004.
COML, a 10-year project running until 2010, involves 1,700 scientists.
Of new species found in 2005, one of the strangest was the rocket-shaped
jellyfish known as a physconect siphonophore.
O'Dor said several pear-shaped jellyfish propelled the long, thin structure
containing the orange reproductive organs -- like ants working in a colony
for a queen.
The discovery of 78 new species of fish, from the depths of the Arctic to
the Indian Ocean, raised the total of fish species documented by COML to
15,717.
In all, it has documented 40,000 species of all types -- from squid to sea
cucumbers -- a fraction of the suspected totals.
Among other surveys, scientists found a "dead zone" at the epicenter of the
December 26 Indian Ocean tsunami.
COML said an absence of large animals in deep water off Sumatra was
"unprecedented in 25 years of deep sea sampling."
Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
.
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