Tags recovered

A striped marlin was caught  and tagged off the Poor Knights Islands on April 9, 2007 by Adrienne McKenty off the boat Lady Shandler, Skipper Gil Lawrie. It was recaptured 400 nautical miles east of Townsville in the Coral Sea on November 15, 2007.

Estimated at 80kg on release and was measured at 232cm from the lower jaw to the fork of the tail on recapture, so the release estimate was pretty accurate.

It was free for 220 days and was caught again 1430 nms from where it was tagged. This was the first conventionally tagged striped marlin from New Zealand recaptured since April, 2006.

In addition, a satellite tag placed on a striped marlin at the Wanganella Banks on January 10, 2006 was washed ashore in northern New South Wales, where it was discovered exactly two years later on January 10, 2008.

The tag is being returned to the manufacturer, who will be able to extract a huge amount of detailed data from it. The tag recorded data every 15 seconds for almost three months before it detached from the marlin and began its long drift.

The limited battery life on the tags means that only highly condensed data summaries can be sent to researchers via satellite.

However, recovering the tag means that all the recorded data can be retrieved.

This is the second satellite tag used by NZ researchers to be recovered in Australia.