MOROCCO HOSTS ADOPT-A-BILLFISH

ERIC ORBESEN

- Satellite tagging for white marlin heads to North Africa

The North African nation of Morocco has long been known as a hotspot for white marlin, in terms of numbers but especially size. Several IGFA line-class world records have come from this region, but the behavioral patterns of billfish in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean in general are relatively unknown, with significant gaps in our understanding. Recognizing this knowledge deficit, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas and its Standing Committee on Research and Statistics has called for a deeper exploration of billfish habitat preferences and their movement patterns in the northeastern Atlantic.

After a successful fishing expedition off the North African nation of Morocco in September 2022, Joan Vernon reached out to marine biologists Derke Snodgrass and me from NOAA's Southeast Fisheries Science Center to gauge interest in satellite tagging in the region as part of her Adopt-a-Billfish program. Pop-up satellite archival tags measure and record temperature, depth and location estimates of the tagged fish for up to one year, giving insight into how fish use the water column, as well as providing valuable data on migration corridors.