Optimistic tracking results for Maine salmon
USA: NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Centre (NEFSC) has tagged 150 Atlantic salmon smolts in Maine's Penobscot River. After tagging the smolt were released in Brewer, Maine, last May. Thus far, 30 of the tagged fish have passed by underwater tracking stations off of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
NEFSC is using the new global Ocean Tracking Network to monitor the salmon's migration in an attempt to understand the decline and slow recovery of the once abundant Atlantic salmon.
Ultrasonic tagging program were first started in Maine in 1997. The scientists are quite exited that the Penobscot River salmon has been found as far away as Halifax.
A unique ultrasonic code from each of the tagged salmon is being transmitted every few seconds. The tracking system currently consists of a network of about 80 acoustic receivers stretching from Brewer, on the Penobscot River not too far from Bangor, into the Gulf of Maine. The receivers record the identity and time when the fish swims past.
NEFSC is encouraged by the data collected thus far. These early data suggest that the juvenile salmon are surviving their migration north to feeding grounds in the Labrador Sea, areas off West Greenland and northern Canada.
