A tracking device inside a Black rockcod?

I fished Stillwater at Carmel yesterday and caught a mixed bag of small rockcod. When I cleaned a black rockcod, I noticed that its belly was stapled together with about 3 staples and there is a black battery cell like thing inside its belly with the number of "3225G".

Does anyone know what the black battery cell thing is and if I should contact anyone who might be doing a research on the fish?

with the number of "3225G".

....means this fish is part of an experiment gone wrong. It's radio active and must not be handled or eaten 

Contact Kristin Green at Moss Landing Marine Lab, she is the graduate student who has been conducting the research out at Duxbury Reef and is starting to do some studies down in Monterey. 

[email protected] or call 831-771-4479

I would contact Monterey Bay Aquarium. They might offer you money.

The black thingy could be just about any sort of scientific gadget used to measure location, temperature, depth, etc.. However, given that it was found inside the fishes body and based on the size I'm guessing it's a simple radio telemetry tag.  There are probably a few receiving stations in the area that record when that fish swam by.

Here's a webpage to the biotelemetry lab at UC Davis.  They've done similar research at Fort Ross with blue rockfish in the past.

http://biotelemetry.ucdavis.edu/pages/Rockfish.htm

Mike O'Farrell is an alum from that lab and is now working in Santa Cruz for NOAA.  He might be continuing work down there.  Here's some contact info for him http://137.110.142.7/staff.aspx?id=1502

Brian

Thank you guys for the advice. I will contact the references and find out what it is. I will share if there is any thing interesting.

You could also try PISCO out at Long Marine lab, although think they deal more with larval recruitment, or Hopkins.

VERY cool!!  The tag MFG. can tell you who it belonged to.

The Monterey Aq tags all kinds of ocean fish and you can track them on thier website. Maybe you got one of those. If you click on the rockfish, you can see where you two intercepted. They've tagged mako, blue and white sharks, tuna, whales, swordfish. All kinds of stuff.

biologist call it "RESEARCH",when they slice you open and staple you shut after ramming a battery in you, but when the aliens from outer space picked me up and did "anal probing" then its called an extra terrestrial encouter....

  SCWA  do you guys do crop circles too???

No Andy, I said I was a Martian, not an alien when I anal probed you.   

another reason not to get arrested in mendo county

another reason not to get arrested in mendo county

 

I'll make sure I dirve 55 on my next trip to Lake Mendo  I can already see visions of Dan and Andy pulling me over (Like Super Troopers)......and stepping out of their cruiser wearing rubber gloves with big evil smiles from their faces 

Meow what are you talking about Mooch?

Meow what are you talking about Mooch?

 

Freakin hilarious...