Cooperative tagging center newsletter: an update since COVID (2020-2023)

The Cooperative Tagging Center (CTC) began as the Cooperative Game Fish Tagging Program (GTP) at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in 1954. The GTP was started by Dr. Frank J. Mather III with an initial focus on bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus). The program expanded to officially include billfish in 1973 and became a joint effort between the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and WHOI. In 1980, the Miami Laboratory of the NMFS’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) took complete responsibility for the operation, funding, and maintenance of the GTP. In 1992, the SEFSC changed the program name to the CTC due to an increase in tagging efforts for a wider variety of species, as well as an increase in tagging research needs and requests for tagging data. Between 1954 and 2023, 276,564 fish of 125 different species or species groups were marked using the CTC’s conventional tags. Until recently, the CTC has focused on the tagging of billfish and tuna in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of America, Caribbean Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea, however, in 2024 we will be expanding the program to include coastal pelagics in these same regions. In addition to billfish and tuna, the new suite of approved species include the following coastal pelagic species: king mackerel, spanish mackerel, greater amberjack, almaco jack, jack crevalle, cobia, and gray triggerfish.