Scientists May Track Salmon with Seals

August 18, 2010 By: Marshall Cutchin

TIME magazine reports this week that scientists are considering the use of tags on elephant seals to monitor salmon migration and population changes.
“‘They get out into the open ocean habitat where we just don’t have receivers.’ What’s more, the animals work cheap. ‘The cost of deploying the tags on an elephant seal for a year is the equivalent of what it costs us to go out and track a fish for a day in a ship.'” NOAA scientist Sean Hayes as quoted by reporter Katy Steinmetz.