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Drag Testing

December 18, 2015

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Julie van der Hoop (left), David Morin (center) of NOAA Fisheries, and Michael Moore, director of the Marine Mammal Center at WHOI, prepare to deploy gear from R/V Tioga. The researchers used a tensiometer to measure the drag forces from various types of fishing gear collected from entangled North Atlantic right whales. The team tested 16 sets of gear, towing them across a range of speeds and depths. On average, the team found that entanglement increases by 1.5 times the total drag on an entangled whale compared to that of a non-entangled whale. (Photo Courtesy of Michael Moore, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)