Michigan researchers: Biologging tags ‘important for conservation’ of dolphins

Researchers at the University of Michigan (UM) have worked with marine mammal park Dolphin Quest Oahu to develop wearable activity tracking devices called biologging tags to help improve conservation efforts for dolphins.

“Our goal is to use tag data to estimate foraging events, how many fish were consumed during a day, and connect that to estimates of how much energy dolphins use during the movement required to catch those fish,” said Alex Shorter, a Michigan assistant professor of mechanical engineering and senior author of a paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology, in a UM new release. “This is important for conservation because we can then use our approach to estimate energetic costs when these animals are disturbed.”    

The release notes that suction cups are used to attach the custom tag between the blowhole and dorsal fin of the dolphin. The tag, made with the help of Loggerhead Instruments, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and Aarhus University in Denmark, can measure speed, temperature, pressure and movement.

The work researchers conducted involved tracking the movement of six dolphins during both prescribed lap trials and free swimming. A specific case study of the daily activity and energetic cost for a bottlenose dolphin was also done with one of the dolphins who was tracked for a 24-hour period.

“Our tag-based method is universally applicable to both animals in managed and wild settings, and can lead to a host of new research in monitoring the physical well-being of dolphin populations, which in turn will inform how we as humans are affecting their travel patterns, feeding requirements, and lives in general,” said Joaquin Gabaldon, a postdoctoral researcher in robotics and first author of the study, in the release.

Gabaldon hopes tagging will be used for the energetic monitoring of other marine animals in the future.