Open AccessImplantation and Recovery of Long-Term Archival Transceivers in a Migratory Shark with High Site Fidelity
Author(s) -
Danielle E. Haulsee,
Dewayne A. Fox,
Matthew W. Breece,
Tonya Clauss,
Matthew J. Oliver
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0148617
Subject(s) - carcharias , nova scotia , transceiver , fishery , term (time) , telemetry , fidelity , fish <actinopterygii> , ecology , geography , environmental science , biology , oceanography , archaeology , geology , telecommunications , computer science , physics , juvenile , quantum mechanics , wireless
We developed a long-term tagging method that can be used to understand species assemblages and social groupings associated with large marine fishes such as the Sand Tiger shark Carcharias taurus . We deployed internally implanted archival VEMCO Mobile Transceivers (VMTs; VEMCO Ltd. Nova Scotia, Canada) in 20 adult Sand Tigers, of which two tags were successfully recovered (10%). The recovered VMTs recorded 29,646 and 44,210 detections of telemetered animals respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a method for long-term (~ 1 year) archival acoustic transceiver tag implantation, retention, and recovery in a highly migratory marine fish. Results show low presumed mortality (n = 1, 5%), high VMT retention, and that non-lethal recovery after almost a year at liberty can be achieved for archival acoustic transceivers. This method can be applied to study the social interactions and behavioral ecology of large marine fishes.