Satellite tag technology has facilitated observations of the movement patterns of large fish in waters around Taiwan, the Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA) said on Friday.
The agency said that it has been collaborating with the Fisheries Research Institute since 2021 to track the movements of fish such as megamouth sharks by installing pop-up satellite archival tags on them.
The tags can accurately record the movements of the fish, the depths they swim at and the temperature of the water, it said, adding that when the tags detach, they float to the surface and transmit the data back to the research team via satellite.
Photo courtesy of the Ocean Conservation Administration
Data on 18 fish from nine species have been recorded — three whale sharks, two megamouth sharks, two winghead sharks, two bowmouth guitarfish, a bottlenose wedgefish, two Taiwanese wedgefish, three shortfin mako sharks, a longfin mako shark and two thresher sharks, the OCA said.
The data from the megamouth sharks were especially valuable, as there have been fewer than 300 reported sightings or catches of the species since the first one was discovered in waters off Hawaii in 1976, it said, adding that more than half of the reports were near Taiwan.
The Fisheries Agency in 2020 promulgated a megamouth shark fishing ban, the OCA said.
The data from the tags showed that the two megamouth sharks typically swam at a depth of 400m to 600m in the daytime, and at about 200m at night, it said.
They lead such a “life of two cities” by alternating between deep and shallow waters, probably to catch prey such as krill, it added.
The data showed that the bottlenose wedgefish tended to swim at 7.5m to 42m and in waters of 25.1°C to 28.9°C, while the Taiwanese wedgefish preferred waters no deeper than 28m at temperatures ranging from 26.75°C to 32.25°C, it said.
The data would be used to formulate ocean conservation policies, it added.
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