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Playing Tag with Sharks

April 6, 2018

Whale sharks and other large fish such as rays, tuna, and swordfish roam our oceans, but we know remarkably little about them. That impedes our ability to understand their roles in ocean ecosystems and to develop effective conservation strategies for them, says WHOI biologist Simon Thorrold. The WHOI Fish Ecology Lab’s TOTEM Project uses satellite tags to track the movements of large fish and some of the conditions of the waters they swim in. TOTEM stands for Tagging of Oceanic Teleost and Elasmobranch Megafauna. Teleosts are bony fish such as tuna and swordfish. Elasmobranchs are cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays. (Photo by Simon Thorrold, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)