May 30, 2012 – Juvenile bluefin tuna, primarily 2- and 5-year-olds migrate along the Atlantic coast with core habitat from the Gulf of Maine and Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras as well as the offshore Gulf Stream, according to a tagging and tracking study of fish caught in 2005 and 2008 by the Large Pelagic Research Center in Gloucester.
"Our tagging results reveal annual dispersal patterns, behaviors and oceanographic associations of juveniles Atlantic bluefin tuna that were only surmised in earlier studies," wrote the authors Benjamin Galuardi and Molly Lutcavage, who is director of the center, a University of Massachusetts Amherst laboratory located at Hodgkins Cove in Gloucester's Bay View section.
Funded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the peer-reviewed study was received in January, accepted in April and published last week.
"While adult bluefin tuna are exploited in the commercial fishery in the western Atlantic," Galuardi and Lutcavage wrote, "juveniles are highly sought by recreational anglers and constitutes a multi-million dollar sport fishery," much of it based here in Gloucester.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.