Finding A Purpose in Paradise

As the sunlight dapples the cerulean surface of the ocean and the cool breezes lazily make their way across the deck, an indistinguishable black contraption is lowered into the water off the stern.

 

                                                                          What if your time in paradise could be purposeful?

 

Surrounding mariners are curious about the strange device, and a dialogue ensues revealing that the unusual apparatus is actually a receiver for picking up signals from tagged fish. With their burning sense of adventure to propel them forward on their journeys, the citizen scientists will set out to collect valuable data that will help scientists learn more about migrating fish populations and strategic placement of receivers.

 

Recognizing the importance of migrating fish populations and their patterns, The Ocean Research Project (ORP) has embarked on the Fish Finder Citizen Science Program in partnership with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. By utilizing the extensive coverage provided by volunteer sailing vessels deploying receivers, they are able to retrieve valuable data about the migration patterns of the fish.

 

The Fish Finder Project began with a 30-day evaluation test in the Chesapeake Bay conducted back in 2014, which then evolved into a pilot study that spanned 18-months. The study revealed that the recreational sailors were able to receive the signals of fish in places where there was no coverage by traditional scientists, which encouraged the ORP to pursue their upcoming second round of Fish Finder volunteers.

 

The Science Behind it All

 

There are many variations of tagging and tracking animals, but for the Fish Finder Project, ORP’s Nicole Trenholm, Science and Education Program Director and Matt Rutherford, Director and Expedition Leader, decided to employ acoustic telemetry.

 

The reason that ORP chose acoustic telemetry over other forms of tracking tags is because “the audio tag is the most affordable and most common tag. When it comes to spaghetti tags, the odds of catching it and the fisherman recording and reporting the number are very unlikely,” says Rutherford.  

 

Learning about how the acoustic telemetry receiver works.

 

In acoustic tagging, the tag produces a “ping” and when the animal comes close enough to the receiver. The receiver collects the data of the animal’s location and stores it, although they do not translate any information about the species of fish or its previous locations- they only collect a serial number, which must then to be deciphered in order to figure out whom was responsible for implanting the tag in the fish in the first place.

 

When the sailors return from the voyage, they deliver the receiver to ORP, which then downloads and analyzes the collected information.  The information they extract from the receiver can help scientists monitor and discover more about fish populations and about effective tagging and receiving strategies.

Michelle Edwards, the Coordinator for the Fish Finder Project shares that, “the biggest thing we learned, that we actually didn’t expect to learn, was that the temporary deployments can help us know where stationary receivers should be, where there aren’t already. There are stationary receivers on every major coastline in the world but they only record data of a given animal if it is within a kilometer of the receiver. So this was a project to see if we could fill these gaps.”

 

                                                                                       

 Team Northern Star in Solomons, MD. (2015)

 

This June will see the launch of the second round of Fish Finder volunteers that will be respectively traveling the U.S. Atlantic coast, the Bahamas and the Gulf of Mexico. There currently are six volunteers selected, two of which are scheduled to leave in the coming weeks, they call themselves Team Confetti.

 

Team Confetti’s passion for this project is evident as they share, “we enjoy giving back to the communities we travel in and what better way than to participate in the Ocean Research Project and give back to the waters we float on!”

The Fish They Found

 

When the project began back in 2014, Dr. Ogburn of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center largely sought out data regarding tagged and received cow nose rays and their migration patterns. Their presence in Chesapeake Bay in the summer left many curious as to where they migrated during the fall months.

 

Cow nose rays are not currently managed by any fisheries management agency and there has been some controversy regarding the rays as they were thought to be the culprits behind a massive shellfish population collapse, which was later found to be the result of a disease outbreak and overfishing.

 

Due to their low reproductive rates of long gestation periods and slow to age into sexual maturity, the cow nose population was largely affected as a result of fishing tournaments where bow and arrows were used to kill the rays simply for sport, as few actually consume the ray as food.

 

These factors lead to increasing justification for the conservation for the cow nose rays and data of their migration patterns can assist in the aid that researchers and conservationists can provide. Understanding the migration patterns of various species in and out of the Chesapeake Bay has been one of the major focuses of this project.

 

In addition to cow nose rays, Striped Bass and the Endangered Atlantic Sturgeon were other major species that were received through Fish Finder Project volunteer receivers.

 

“We are going to find fish that are of the greatest interest to regional marine biologists and fisheries managers. This includes sharks, turtles, rays, sea bass, sturgeon, and many species that are often overlooked for their role traversing over long migrations that actively participate as a native member to a complex ecosystem such as the Chesapeake Bay. Managed and endangered species are often tagged and can wind up recorded on a receiver,” says Trenholm about the fish they are encountering.

 

Much of the data from previous Fish Finder Projects is still being processed through a scientific network of serial numbers for each tagged animal. Taking the time to download the information from the receivers, locate the serial number in the network and then contact the respective researcher requires meticulous and time consuming focus to finally discover which species of fish was picked up.

 

Dr. Ogburn says, “Our main role has been connecting the data that are collected by the fish finders to the research community. We are part of a network called the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry Network. That network has the tag codes to then find the researchers.”

 

The research community has generally agreed that whoever bought the tags and tagged the fish, the data belongs to them.

 

The Future Ahead

 

With dedicated volunteers and positive results, The Fish Finder Project grows every year, and without a shortage of volunteers interested in participating in the project, the only limit is the amount of receivers that can be afforded.

 

Each receiver is costly and must be handled with extreme care.

 

Rutherford explains that the struggle to locate funding has proven challenging. A grant would allow ORP to afford a new fleet of receiver units, while also allowing them to compensate an individual that would manage the program.

 

Despite the challenge of financial backing, the Fish Finder Project team perseveres that this project is for the greater good. Edwards says, “we are trying to collect this information for the science community at large.”  

 

Other goals include “helping fill in gaps and finding new places that would be really beneficial to deploy acoustic receivers, and longer term, to generate data that goes into scientific publications and data that can be used to help figure out how we can sustainably manage fish along the coast,” says Ogburn.

 

Trenholm speaks of ORP’s desire to help “gauge the activity of varying managed and native species, their migratory patterns, and their preferred habitat for breeding, then scientists can observe what conditions are favorable for their livelihood.”

 

One such fisheries project is Amy Carlson’s projected sea bass study based in the Chesapeake Bay. The Fish Finder volunteers will be coordinating with local yacht clubs in the Bay to assist in the 2018 NOAA Chesapeake Bay Fisheries Research Program RFP that will help to identify the species’ “movement ecology and habitat utilization of the Bay which has not been clearly identified yet, which is important when managing such a valued species,” says Carlson.

 

Fisheries and resource management facilities will be able to make better-informed decisions with consideration to the stressors and influences on atmospheric and oceanic environments and how they affect shifting fish populations, thanks to the information provided from the Fish Finders.