Table 29. Releases and returns for giant bluefin tuna (over 1 20 kg) tuna tagged in 

 St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia, by year of release, months at large and area* c>f 

 recapture. 



♦Areas: L = Local, G = Gulf of St. Lawrence, N = New England, W 

 Wedgeport, Nova Scotia 



Gulf of St Lawrence had been at 

 liberty for 49, 60 and 63 months. 

 These six migrations were therefore 

 ■ indirect ' The recaptures off New 

 England occurred in June (1 recap- 

 ture) and August (3 recaptures); the 

 one at Wedgeport occurred in Sep- 

 tember. Those in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence occurred in July (1 recap- 

 ture), August (2 recaptures), Septem- 

 ber (3 recaptures) and October (1 

 recapture) The two local recaptures 

 after a winter at liberty took place in 

 August and October 



Sport fishermen cooperating 

 with United States and Canadian pro- 

 grams have tagged 962 giant bluefm 

 in eastern Newfoundland waters, and 

 of these nine tags have been returned 

 (Table 31) Four of these were re- 

 covered locally, but five were re- 

 turned from other areas (Figure 77) 

 The longest migrations recorded were 

 from Notre Dame Bay, Newfound- 

 land, in August 1970 and 1971, to 

 Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, in July 

 1 974, and October 1 973, respectively. 

 These two fish had moved nearly 

 1 ,000 nautical miles ( 1 ,850 km). Two 



mer off northeastern North America 

 Since 1961, 583 giant bluefin tuna 

 have been tagged and released from 

 traps in St. Margaret's Bay near 

 Halifax, Nova Scotia, (Beckett 1970, 

 Caddy and Burnett 1975, Burnett 

 1977), and 22 of these tags have been 

 returned (Table 29, Figure 78). Ten 

 of the recaptures were local (in St. 

 Margaret's Bay), eight in the release 

 season and t\vo in the following sum- 

 mer The other 12 recoveries indi- 

 cated longer migrations (Table 30), 

 one to the area off Wedgeport, Nova 

 Scotia, four to New England waters 

 and seven into the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. The fish recaptured off 

 Wedgeport had been at liberty for 

 only 49 days and four of those recap- 

 tured in the Gulf of St Lawrence for 

 from 63 to 84 days, so that all five 

 migrations were "direct". The four 

 fish whose tags were recovered off 

 New England had been at large for 

 from 12 to 35 months and the other 

 three which were recaptured in the 



100° 



95" 



90- 



8b" 



80° 



50" 



50' 



15* 



35" - 



30" - 



25' - 



20" - 



LEGEND 



O RELEASE LOCALITY 

 • BECAPTUBE LOCALITY 

 (") RtTUHN NUMBER 



RETURN RELEASE RECAPTURE 



NUMBER DATE SIZE » DATE SIZE » 

 X '«« (IStk^) at 'TO 194I19 

 Sl'rOIZOAhg) sa'70ir9k^ 

 E ri IIBI kal m. '7i VOfcq 

 SI '73(2?Sh9l sn'r« 2S6k« 

 z '71 1182 kf) m 'rs 2SO«9 

 SI'7M29«ke) IE '77 TCOcn 

 WEIGHTS ARE FOR WHOLE FiSH FIGURES 

 IN PARENrMFSES WEHE ESTIMAIFO 



Figure 76 Geographic distribution of bluefin tag relea.se and recapture data from 

 Bahamas tagging studies. 



116 



