QLD-based fish tagging organisation Suntag has reached a milestone with the entering of its 600,000th tagged fish into its database.
The graph below shows the year in which each of Suntag’s 100,000th tagging milestones occurred since the program began. As indicated, the gap between each has shortened as years progressed. Tagging the last 100,000 fish was achieved in 2.5 years; in comparison it had taken eight years to tag the first of this number.
There have been just over 8,600 fishers tagging fish in the Suntag program. Notably, Mick Dohnt has tagged almost 25,000 fish on his own.
Suntag acknowledges the efforts of all involved in its tagging program and the funding support from Fisheries Queensland.
The latest example of successful tagging involved a mangrove jack – Tag no. P25785 – that was originally tagged on 10/7/2004 and recaptured on 9/4/2010. In the 2099 days or almost six years of liberation the jack had grown from 225mm to 550mm in length (57mm per year) and travelled a distance of 105km. The fish had ventured north on its journey and was captured on an offshore reef. See map above for fish’s movements.
For more on Suntag go to: www.info-fish.net.
