Tagging Equipment - UTE  

Star-Oddi has developed Underwater Tagging Equipment (UTE) for tagging fish down in the oceans.  Being the first company to offer equipment for this purpose makes Star-Oddi a pioneer in the technology of tagging fish underwater.  The equipment has revolutionized methods for fish tagging and fisheries research. The equipment is inserted in the ship's fishing trawl net to perform the operation underwater. 

The Underwater Tagging Equipment gives the following advantages

• The UTE is specially designed for tagging deepwater fish that cannot survive changes in pressure and surface temperatures
• It prevents the need for hauling the fish to the surface for tagging and release
• Less time is spent in handling the fish, which leads to increased tagging efficiency
• Fish is tagged in its natural environment, avoiding stress factors as pressure and temperature changes and therefore decreases tagging mortality.

The UTE opens new fields in fish research, enabling researchers to tag deepwater species that have not been previously tagged, and can not survive being brought to the surface. The UTE can tag fish at hundreds of meters depth. Recapture of tags released from the UTE is dependent on fisheries. The tags will help scientists to learn more about the behavior of various fish species, and provide information on fish migration, distribution, feeding behavior, vertical and horizontal movements and stock assessment. Data from the tags will further provide valuable information for the management of the fishery resources and help with decision making. Both electronic tags (measuring temperature and depth), and dummy tags, can be used in the UTE.

In the development process, a few experimental cruises were conducted, where the fish was surfaced after the tagging procedure by UTE, to analyse the success of the tagging.

In October 2003 there was a successful tagging cruise, when 200 redfish were tagged at 500m depth in the Irminger Sea.  Here you can read more about the cruise. 

In June 2004, the Marine Research Institute (MRI) in Iceland, along with a team of experts from Star-Oddi, tagged 552 redfish at depths from 500m to 800m, using the Underwater Tagging Equipment (UTE) made by Star-Oddi.

In June 2005 MRI were able to tag 1024 redfish in a successful cruise.  Thereof, 49 fish were tagged with electronic tags DST micro, measuring depth and temperature.  Tagging depth was 500-800 m.

In August 2006 MRI tagged 646 redfish, thereof 38 with electronic tags DST micro.

The counter below shows the number of redfish that have been recaptured from the tagging cruises.

Counter
41 tagged redfish recaptured since the first cruise in October 2003

Click here to see A map of recaptured fish from the tagging cruises!!