What types of marine animals do scientists tag and track?
Scientists regularly track the travels of many different species of marine animals, fish and birds, including, sea turtles, yellowfin and bluefin tuna, sharks, elephant seals, penguins and even polar bears.
Benefits of tagging
Marine animals are some of the world's most beautiful, unique and elusive creatures. Tagging is a means of providing scientists with much needed information about ocean temperatures, which aid in global warming awareness, migration paths and schedules which is useful to ocean conservationists.
Knowing where and when an ocean dwelling species migrates is very important to conservationists who work hard to protect and conserve the biodiversity of feeding and breeding grounds. The data received from tagging makes it much easier to help protect critically endangered species and their ecosystems.
Sources:
"Satellite Tracking Reveals Sea Turtle Feeding Hotspots", ScienceDaily.com, 06 February 2012, Accessed 03 March 2012
"Global network aims to tag, track marine life", msnbc.com, 27 June 2006, Accessed 03 March 2012
"Satellite Tags", seaturtle.org, Accessed 03 March 2012
http://suite101.com/what-is-tagging-and-why-is-it-important-to-scientists-a404136
