The Albie Project: Tagging Has Begun!

By Tony Friedrich, VP/Policy Director

False albacore (albies) have arrived in Nantucket Sound and so have our tagging teams, eager to get started on our acoustic tagging study to learn more about the species (you can also check out our podcast). We got the text a few days ago from Dr. Jeff Kneebone at the New England Aquarium: “One tag down, 49 to go!” While not the same as “The eagle has landed,” it was still pretty darn cool to realize that all this work is coming to pass. Jeff was on board with Capt. Mike Hogan of Hogy Lures. You couldn’t ask for a better team.

None of this would have been possible without our sponsors (see image above). It is a heck of a thing to have so many top brands willing to donate funds and resources to our harebrained ideas. Their trust in the ASGA team is enormously appreciated. When you make your purchasing decisions, please consider the companies that are helping to support the science needed to better manage our fisheries.

Behind the scenes, we have been working our butts off trying to get everything right. A quarter of a million-dollar project comes with a great deal of responsibility. The folks at the New England Aquarium had to develop, design, and build a contraption that would immobilize and properly position the albies for tag surgery while flushing sea water over their gills. The Mr. Fix-It dad in me was impressed! Scheduling for trips, coordination with our awesome sponsors, logo designs, podcasts, blogs, and another ten things I am forgetting all had to get done. Now all we have to worry about is catching notoriously tricky fish in notoriously fickle fall New England weather. What could possibly go wrong?!

Conventional (Spaghetti) Tagging in The Works

There is even more exciting news to announce. We have teamed up with NOAA Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center to deploy spaghetti tags in albies up and down the coast. Spaghetti tagging is a high volume and low yield (recapture rate) endeavor. Our hope is that recaptured tagged fish will give us a sense of albie movements, which could complement our acoustic tagging work in Nantucket Sound.

The nylon anchor tags we’ll be using are a little different than the commonly used T-bar type tags some readers might be familiar with. Nylon anchor tags include a dart system that closely resembles something a Neanderthal might have used to kill a mastodon. The problem with all the tuna species is that they move around. A lot. Due to their speed and biology, tuna can throw a tag like nothing else. The only solution out there is a nylon anchor tag. It kind of defeats the purpose if the tag doesn’t stay in.

Due to the type of tag and deployment system, we decided to hand-pick guides from our membership based on their tagging experience and location. ASGA wanted as much geographic coverage as possible, so we picked guides all along the coast from Massachusetts to Florida. We do plan to expand this work to more individuals. The smart play right now is to start slow and learn from the process before we open this up.

Many people have asked us how they can help. In the next few weeks, ASGA will be asking the public for 50 Albie Tag Team sponsors. Despite our best efforts, there is a budget gap that needs to be filled. We will publish the details as soon as everything is firmed up.

The upcoming days will be filled with more tagging, more trips, and our guides up and down the coast receiving their tagging kits. There is still a ton of work to get done. In fact, we have just started. It is hard not be excited, but we still have a long way to go.