Tuna's 25,000-Mile Swim Down Marine Highway
Roger Highfield
Telegraph.co.uk, UK
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The epic voyage of Terry the bluefin tuna - the equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth - has been witnessed by scientists using electronic tags to track fish.
A few months ago a great white shark named Nicole completed the first known ocean crossing by a lone shark over a distance of more than 12,500 miles from South Africa to Australia and back in nine months, the fastest known return journey.
Now another epic migration, this time of a 200lb bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) nicknamed Terry, has been followed by marine scientists tagging fish to reveal marine highways and to help to preserve endangered stocks.
The tag broadcast Terry's trans-Pacific wanderings - three crossings in 20 months, a distance of 25,000 miles. Why the fish did this is a mystery. Prof Ron O'Dor, from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, one of the scientists working on the project, said: "I don't know anything that approaches this when it comes to fish."The Topp (Tagging of Pacific Pelagics) project has discovered that bluefin tuna once believed to live separate lives in Japanese and Californian waters may belong to a single population.
This has important implications for managing fish stocks, he said, adding that similar findings have also been made by Prof Barbara Block of Stanford University in the North Atlantic where the two separate groups are also thought to intermingle when migrating.
Dec 15, 2005
Roger Highfield
Telegraph.co.uk, UK
_______________
The epic voyage of Terry the bluefin tuna - the equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth - has been witnessed by scientists using electronic tags to track fish.
A few months ago a great white shark named Nicole completed the first known ocean crossing by a lone shark over a distance of more than 12,500 miles from South Africa to Australia and back in nine months, the fastest known return journey.
Now another epic migration, this time of a 200lb bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) nicknamed Terry, has been followed by marine scientists tagging fish to reveal marine highways and to help to preserve endangered stocks.
The tag broadcast Terry's trans-Pacific wanderings - three crossings in 20 months, a distance of 25,000 miles. Why the fish did this is a mystery. Prof Ron O'Dor, from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, one of the scientists working on the project, said: "I don't know anything that approaches this when it comes to fish."The Topp (Tagging of Pacific Pelagics) project has discovered that bluefin tuna once believed to live separate lives in Japanese and Californian waters may belong to a single population.
This has important implications for managing fish stocks, he said, adding that similar findings have also been made by Prof Barbara Block of Stanford University in the North Atlantic where the two separate groups are also thought to intermingle when migrating.
Dec 15, 2005
