California: A new study by marine biologists reports that Seals can essentially act as ‘smart sensors’ for monitoring fish populations in the Ocean’s eerily dim ‘twilight zone.’
Over the past 60 years, marine biologists at uc santa cruz have monitored the behavior of Northern Elephant Seals That Journey to Nearby Ano Nuevo Natural Reservion.
With the seals gathering on the beach by the thosands to breed and moult, generations of researchrs have been able to get to ams more than 350,000 observations on over 50,000 seals.
Roxanne beltran is next in line to lead the project, and her new Study being published on February "Smart Sensors" For monitoring fish populations in the Ocean’s eerily dim "Twilight zone."
This is the layer of water between 200 and 1,000 meters below sea level, where Sunlight Penetration All But Stops, And which today’s Ocean monitoring tools cannot easy.
Ships and Floating Buoys only allows of a tiny fraction of the ocean, while satellites can’t measure below the surface where Fish Occur.
Importantly, this zone holds the majority of the planet’s fish biomass. Because this is also where the seals feed, seals whose phoaging success is tracked can provide a previously impossible war to measure the availability of fish posulation
This, beltran said, represents a significant discovery because humans are considering harvesting these fish population to satisfy humanity’s ever-emptysing Need for protein-rich foods.