Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2019)

pp. 52–54

Technical Report-Note (not peer reviewed)

The platform and equipment for satellite-monitored tagging
experiments in NEWREP-A and NEWREP-NP
Kenji Konishi* and Tatsuya Isoda
Institute of Cetacean Research, 4–5 Toyomi-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104–0055, Japan*Contact e-mail: konishi@cetacean.jp
In recent years, satellite monitored tags have been recognized as crucial tools for behavioural studies of wild
animals. These tools have been used for monitoring
movement patterns of free-ranging animals such as marine mammals and sea turtles (e.g. Hoenner et al., 2012;
Mclntyre, 2014; Lee et al., 2017). However, the attachment of the tags on the body of large whales is a challenging issue, as attachment of the tag needs to be made frommoving vessels on moving whales.
Recently satellite tags housed in stainless steel and airpressured tagging guns have been used successfully for thelong-term tracking of large whales to investigate their migration routes (e.g. Kennedy et al., 2014; Garrigue et al., 2015;
Panigada et al., 2017). From the analysis of time series location data, the changes of movement speed and the swimming angle can be calculated, and the latest modelling approach enables the deﬁnition of behaviour of the animals,
such as foraging or migrating (Jonsen et al., 2005; 2013; Silvaet al., 2013; 2014; Prieto et al., 2014; Dulau et al., 2017).
Satellite tracking of baleen whales was part of the objectives of NEWREP-A and NEWREP-NP, and the Instituteof Cetacean Research (ICR) have been working on thedevelopment of tags, and attachment systems to be usedfrom the platform of large vessels. This paper reports on
the platform and instruments of the satellite monitored
tagging experiments conducted during NEWREP-A andNEWREP-NP surveys including a description of the tags,
the attachment system and the vessels from where theexperiments were conducted. Results of the experiments
will be summarized in future TEREP-ICR issues.

triangle stop plate; Wildlife Computers Inc.) (Figure 1).
SPOT177 was designed to track the positions of thewhales. The anchor was designed by ICR (ca. 100 mm inISOD-type ver.2) for stabilizing the tags at implantation,and it was screwed on the anterior of the tag-housing(Figure 1 and 2). The penetration into the body was almost 200 mm (from the stopper at the end of tags to theFigure 1.

Satellite monitored tag SPOT177 (Wildlife ComputersInc.)

Figure 2.

The anchors designed by the ICR for SPOT type tags.

Satellite monitored tags
The ICR used the so-called Type C tags. The anchoring
systems and electronic packages are consolidated andembedded in the body of the animals with an external antenna (IWC, NOAA and ONR, 2019). This Type C tags havebeen used for relatively large whales. Geographical locations are obtained by satellite transmissions, such as Argos
system operated by Collected Localisation Satellite (CLS).
Speciﬁcally the ICR used the SPOT177 tags (113 mm with52

The platform and equipment for satellite-monitored tagging experiments in NEWREP-A and NEWREP-NP

tip of the anchor). The ending part of the tag was connected to a pipe-like LK-Carrier (made of polycarbonate
designed by LK-ARTS, Skutvik, Norway) (Figure 3) with atiming release, and inserted into the barrel of the Airgun.
LK-Carrier also works as a ﬂoat in case deployment failureoccurs at sea. The anchors and tags were sterilized before
their use. Once deployment was conﬁrmed as successful,a saltwater sensor activated the tag that started transmitting when the dry switch sensor surfaced.

AirgunThe Air Rocket Transmitting System (LK-ARTS), which wasdeveloped by Lars Kleivane in cooperation with RestechNorway, was used for launching the tags in NEWREP-A
and NEWREP-NP (Figure 4). LK-ARTS is designed to launchsatellite tags, sensor packages, biopsy darts etc. by com-Figure 3.

A set for SPOT177 attachment. Anchor, tag and LKCarrier are connected.

Figure 4.

pressed air. The entire body is made of alumite and thebarrel (launching tube) and the posterior stock (shoulder support) are detachable, so that the length can bechanged depending on the tag shapes. Total length is approximately 1,350 mm with a 780 mm launching tube. An
optical sight and a pressure manometer are connected.
The air cylinder with hose is connected to the valve of theLK-ARTS in the Figure 4. Air pressure is easily controlled
by the valve on the base. This allows shooting at diﬀerent
distances.

VesselsThe tags were deployed from the bow deck (6.5 m heightfrom sea surface) of the R/V Yushin-Maru-type vessels(ca.720 GT) with length of about 70 m (Figure 5). The useof this type of vessels has the advantage of being able toconduct tag attachments far from shore and under roughsea condition. In parallel to tagging, skin biopsies werealso collected from the same individual whales for genetic analyses using a Larsen gun system (Larsen, 1998).
During the tagging experiments, the part of the whale
body where the tags were attached was recorded (Figure 6). Also, photos of the attached tags were taken to in-

The Air Rocket Transmitting System (LK-ARTS) launching system.

Figure 5.

Yushin-Maru-type vessel and its bow deck.
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Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2019)

Figure 6.

Code of whale body area used for recording thelocation of tags deployment.

vestigate the relationship between the depth of penetration and the radio transmissions for modiﬁcation of theanchor and improvement of the attachment techniques.

Target whale species
The platform and equipment described in this note havebeen used in all NEWREP-A (2015/16–2018/19) andNEWREP-NP (2017–2019) survey years. The satellitemonitored tags were deployed on the Antarctic minke
whales in the Indo-Paciﬁc region of the Antarctic, and oncommon minke, sei, ﬁn and blue whales in the western
North Paciﬁc. The tracking results will be reported in future TEREP-ICR issues.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Lars Kleivane, Shingo Minamikawa andShigetoshi Nishiwaki for providing technical advice on thedevelopment and implementation of tagging equipment.
Thanks are also due to the crews on board of the vesselsfor their assistance during the ﬁeld works.

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