Tracking these migrations in the ocean is a great scientific challenge because most migratory marine species rarely if ever come to the surface where they can be tracked using satellites. Instead, researchers commonly use acoustic telemetry, attaching or implanting tags that transmit signals by sound to fixed arrays of receivers. This strategy is effective where receivers are present, but the costs of deploying and maintaining receivers is too great to cover all of the habitats that may be critical for species survival.
The Fish Finder Project, a collaboration between the Ocean Research Project and Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), was conceived to help solve this problem by engaging the live-aboard sailing community to serve as citizen scientists. In the present case, boaters traverse coastlines and oceans, anchoring or docking in developed and remote locations alike. Fish and other marine species migrate along many of these same coastlines, visiting habitats that are critical as breeding and spawning sites, nurseries, foraging grounds, or migratory corridors. The co-location of boaters and marine species in coastal ecosystems makes our citizen scientists, the Fish Finders, effective at collecting data on marine species migrations that would otherwise be lost to science.