The first deployments of pop-up satellite archival tags on black sea bass (Centropristis striata)

Abstract

Black sea bass (Centropristis striata; BSB) are a commercially managed species with an increasing population in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Understanding their movement ecology can be difficult due to their wide distribution and ability to inhabit both inshore and offshore reef habitats. BSB have been studied using a range of tagging techniques, and here we present the results of the first deployments of pop-up satellite archival tags (PSAT) on this species. During 2019 and 2021, we conducted four fishing trips within the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight region of the NW Atlantic and tagged a total of 30 fish with T-bar tags and external data loggers, of which 4 received a PSAT and the rest received a Star-Oddi conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) archival tag. All PSATs transmitted some data, with short attachment durations (8–32 days) relative to the programmed release of 250 days, and we did not recover a Star-Oddi tag. External tag attachment techniques need to be examined and improved before continued deployment of larger data loggers on BSB.