In April, a crew consisting of Shedd Fishes department experts, researchers from the Bahamas National Trust and divers from the University of Miami and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection placed a dozen acoustic telemetry monitors along 140 miles of the continental shelf off the eastern coast of Andros, the largest island in the Bahamas. Past studies revealed that the groupers migrate along the edge of the shelf.
Sitting in about 100 feet of water, each monitor floats on a 10-foot tether from an anchor of concrete blocks, where it can detect tagged groupers within a 150-meter radius if there are no obstructions to the signal such as large coral heads.
This summer, the team is back in Andros, tagging adult Nassau groupers on their home reefs. The surgically implanted transmitters, about the size of a AA battery, last for several years, so the team should be able to learn the groupers' migration patterns, spawning behaviors and habitat preferences during several breeding seasons.
The findings will be used by the Bahamas Department of Marine Resources to create a science-based management plan to protect this ecologically and economically important endangered species.