RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
The Indian Ocean Cetacean Symposium held in Maldives from 18-20 July 2009 concludes with a declaration pressing for improved conservation and management of whales and dolphins in the Indian Ocean. Sixty scientists and conservationists from 22 countries particpated at the Symposium. A wide range of research, management and conservation work being carried out in the Indian Ocean was presented.
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A pilot project on 'Cost Effective Monitoring of Fishing Vessels' is underway. Fourteen vessels will take part in the project where the vessel's route is precisely recorded with the help of GPS systems. Vessels in range of GPRS network will regularly transmit the data to ground based computer servers where it can be acccessed via Internet. The track data, complemented by the fisheries log-book information, allows researchers estimate catch and fishing effort.
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Use of anchored fish aggregating devices (FADs) as tools for scientific research is still new. MRC has started a fresh collaboration with French scientists on a project to instrument FADs for studying behaviour of fish aggregations around them. "Listening" devices fixed on FADs in conjunctin with acoustic tagging will be used to study resident times and association of the skipjack around FADs. These are considered important infomation for spatiaal configuraton of FAD networks and assessing the stock status.
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MRC is collaborating with Indian Ocean Tuna Commission on their efforts to improve stock assessment of major tuna species. As part of the Indian Ocean Tuna Tagging Programme, MRC is carrying out a Small Scale Tagging Project where yellowfin and skipjack tuna will be released in the Maldives area. This work will complement the EU supported Regional Tuna Tagging Project.
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