Gone Fishin', Dr. Barbara Block

If you want to talk to Dr. Barbara Block, you’ll probably have a hard time tracking her down—she’s often out fishing.

But luckily for Dr. Block, fishing is a big part of her job. She’s conducting innovative research that uses tags to find out more about elusive bluefin tuna. She’s hoping that the tags will provide managers with information that will help them better manage this declining fish species.

Why are bluefin tuna in decline? Dr. Block explains, “To a fisher, catching a bluefin is a lot like winning the lottery.” Bluefin tuna can fetch incredibly high prices in some markets—individual fish have sold for more than $60,000. Such high prices have sparked heavy fishing pressure, and as fishing has increased the number of bluefin tuna has declined sharply.

An added challenge in managing bluefin tuna is that little is known about where the fish go during their migrations, so it’s hard to provide adequate protections for them. That’s where Dr. Block’s research could help.

The tags that Dr. Block is implanting on the tunas are called satellite pop-up tags. Once implanted, a tiny computer chip inside the tag records information about where the tuna travels, as well as a lot of other information. Then, at a preprogrammed time, the tag pops off the tuna, floats to the surface, and transmits the data to a satellite. Dr. Block can retrieve the data from the satellite and get an instant picture of where the tuna has traveled.

Dr. Block is hopeful about the new technology. She thinks that by using the information that the tags provide, “management strategies can reflect fish behavior in the real world.” And that could mean a recovery of the bluefin tuna in the near future.