Implantation and Recovery of Long-Term Archival Transceivers in a Migratory Shark with High Site Fidelity |
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| Authors: | Danielle E. Haulsee Dewayne A. Fox Matthew W. Breece Tonya M. Clauss Matthew J. Oliver |
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| Affiliation: | 1. College of Earth, Ocean and the Environment, University of Delaware, Lewes, DE, United States of America;2. Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Delaware State University, Dover, DE, United States of America;3. Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta, GA, United States of America;Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, UNITED STATES |
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| Abstract: | 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. |
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