Researchers Track Rehabilitated Seal to Wellfleet

COURTESY OF NOAA

WOODS HOLE – A rehabilitated seal which was released a few weeks ago at Scusset Beach near the Cape Cod Canal has made her way to Wellfleet.

Miley Sealrus was equipped with satellite and acoustic tags by Researchers at the National Marine Life Center in Bourne to track her movements and behaviors.

Researchers expect the seal the leave the shores of Cape Cod Bay to make her way to the Gulf of Maine in the coming weeks.

“This is the first time NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center researchers have put an acoustic tag on a gray seal,” said Kimberly Murray, coordinator of seal research at the Center’s Woods Hole laboratory.

Seal flippers are routinely tagged with flipper tags for identification and satellite tags which fall off when they molt, usually within a year.

“We’re excited at the potential this Vemco acoustic tag gives us,” Murray said. “Acoustic tags are far less costly than satellite tags, are very small and can stay on for a much longer time.”

Acoustic tags send a signal which can be picked up by receivers in the region by several organizations.

The data from the acoustic tag will be available at the end of the year when the receivers are recovered from the ocean and the data is downloaded.