Publication Abstract

Do tagging experiments tell the truth? Using electronic tags to evaluate conventional tagging data

L.J.Bolle, E. Hunter, A.D. Rijnsdorp, M.A. Pastoors, J.D. Metcalfe and J.D. Reynolds

Fish have been tagged since the beginning of the 20th century. The conventional tagging experiments only provide information at the time of release and the time of recapture. Migration patterns based on these experiments may be biased by the distribution of fishing effort. Tagging fish with data storage tags enables the reconstruction of the position of the fish between release and recapture. These reconstructed tracks provide migration parameter estimates that are independent of the distribution of the fleet, and thus the means to evaluate conventional tagging experiments. We compared the migration patterns of plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) as inferred from conventional tagging experiments to the results of data storage tagging experiments.

Reference:

L.J. Bolle, E. Hunter, A.D. Rijnsdorp, M.A. Pastoors, J.D. Metcalfe and J.D. Reynolds (2005). Do tagging experiments tell the truth? Using electronic tags to evaluate conventional tagging data. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 62(2): 236-246.