Howard Hall commented here on Wetpixel about the proliferation of tags that are festooning some marine animals and the potential negative effects that these may have on the animals that the studiers seek to understand. A paper published recently in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B entitled Grey Seals use anthropogenic signals from acoustic tags to locate fish shows how grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) have learnt to use the signals emitted by fish tags as an aid to hunting more efficiently.

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The battle to save the Vaquita of the Gulf of California involves an interesting cast of characters: a Mexican drug cartel, Chinese wildlife traffickers, and an endangered fish’s swim bladder. Scientists believe the critically endangered porpoises, down to a population of 100, could become extinct within three years if drastic action is not taken.

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Ikelite has launched their MIL system for mirrorless cameras. The first two housings are for the Olympus OM-D E-M10 and PEN E-PL7 cameras. The housings feature Ikelite’s TTL strobe triggering system and a new interchangeable lens system. This offers support for Olympus and Panasonic zoom, wide-angle and macro lenses.

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Filmmaker Howard Hall explores the issues around the tagging of marine creatures for scientific research. Whilst the technology and data that tagging programs can provide is amazing, are the studies in the animals or the researchers best interests? Is the proliferation on tagging programs really giving us the scientific data we need to protect the creatures, or are we damaging the very animals we seek to protect with them?

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