Tag On!

Mike Dodge, husband of marine biologist Kara Dodge, prepares to attach a suction cup-mounted tag to the back of a leatherback sea turtle in waters near Cape Cod recently. Both were part of a team that included WHOI engineer Amy Kukulya, who helped develop the autonomous tracking technology behind the REMUS SharkCam vehicle. Kukulya and members of the Oceanographic Systems Lab modified the tag and the programming inside the vehicle to allow it to track and film sea turtles in the wild in order to give researchers a view of how the animals interact with their environment. The recent trip was a first for TurtleCam, as the vehicle successfully tracked the turtle for almost six hours.(Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)