Tortugas Take Two

The FWRI's Finfish group just returned from another successful 10 day trip to the Dry Tortugas National Park aboard KML's R/V Diodon.



The group visited over 60 sites (which included 9 sites at Riley's Hump in the Tortugas South Ecological Reserve over 18 miles from Fort Jefferson) and conducted 65 research dives during the span of 8 days in the field with AVERAGED sustained wind speed just over 20 mph. As you can see below even the fish were impressed with just how very hard the team worked!


The goal of this trip was to again retrieve, download, and replace acoustic receivers (Vemco VR2) at various locations throughout the park that are tracking the movements of tagged fish, mainly snappers and groupers, but are also recording other researchers' animal movements such as sea turtles and sharks.



The early returns of the data have shown that mutton snappers that reside near Fort Jefferson in the newly formed Research Natural Area (RNA) are traveling back and forth between there and the group's sites at Riley's Hump that are known to have spawning aggregations in the summer months.



KML staff was again happy to be involved in this research and looks forward to possible trips with FWRI scientists in the future.