I watched this fascinating short a few weeks ago about deep sea tuna tagging, and am finally getting a chance to share with y’all. It’s from the popular TED series of informative videos curated by Chris Anderson (editor-in-chief of Wired, The Long Tail, etc).

You can hear the enthusiasm in Barbara Block’s voice about these tuna as she narrates the video. She shares with us how billfish, sharks, and tuna move around (and stay warm) in the open ocean. Knowing how these large predators travel through the open ocean will help us understand their role in the wider ocean ecosystem, she says – something many tuna hunting ships have apparently already mastered given the incentive they have for the high price obtained on the worldwide seafood market.

She describes, and indeed admires, tuna as ocean athletes — saying they are fast, far-ranging predators whose habits we’re just beginning to understand. As a marine biologist, she fits tuna with tracking tags (complete with transponders) that record unprecedented amounts of data about these threatened fish and the habitats they swim through.

Near the end of the video, you can see incredible animations of the migratory patterns for these tuna – pretty cool stuff!

They were listed first alphabetically as competitors in this year’s MegaDock Tournament, so it was practically “in the stars” that the ‘Bench Mark‘ crew end a day early – with double the catch of the 2nd place team!

Bench Mark’s Blue Marlin and 5 Sailfish releases toppled Reel Passion’s 2nd place spot of 2 Blue Marlin and 1 Sailfish release, but everybody involved had a great time no doubt!

“The interesting thing is that for the first time in years, a large number of blue marlin were encountered, with 14 actually being caught and released. This is more than the total number of blue’s that have been caught this year in the three previous tournaments combined. Further, in recent years, July has been a slow month for encountering blue marlin. The reason for the surge is unknown.” – SCDNR biologist Wallace Jenkins.

Congratulations to the ‘Bench Mark’ crew. So, what’s the split on $105,184 amongst y’all anyway?