Primary Monthly Newsletters

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Low-cost & User Friendly Environmental Monitoring

Find the best location to build a hydrokinetic energy harvesting site for renewable energy. Utilize real-time acoustic data streaming and batch processing for automated data reduction. Find out the important answers to important questions regarding environmental impact of MHK chosen sites.

Learn more about sonarpoint localizing toolkit

New Studies ?

Satellite Tags For Detection & Reporting of Fish Spawning Events
California Approves Ropeless Fishing - To Begin In 2021
Desert Star Systems In The News

Learn More here

Tools for Conservation Management

Consumer guides for ethically caught and sustainable seafood are more widely available now than ever before. More restaurants and grocery stores are proudly displaying these labels and facts for consumer consumption. Could Whale-Safe Seafood labels be next?

Read The Autumn Newsletter update here

Update - SonarPoint Hydrophone Selection

This month we answer common questions about PAM capabilities including hydrophone selection, simultaneous frequency monitoring, self noise and frequency response curves. Which hydrophone is best suited for your projects? Find out the pros and cons here.

Read the september 2020 newsletter here

Next Steps For Underwater Acoustics... and beyond traditional studies.

With the launch of Desert Star's newest underwater recorders known as SonarPoint™, we also take a look at what lies in store for underwater acoustics such as SeaTag PSAT fish spawning detection and the future of ropeless fishing.

Read More about the latest acoustic innovations here

Introducing The Acoustic Release Cartridge For Cold Environments

In this month's newsletter we take a look at the Quality Control Team testing with the SAM-1™ Acoustic Modem, introducing the ARC cartridge replacement system (including a Video Tutorial) and more of Desert Star Systems in the news!

Read the July 2020 newsletter here

SeaTag™ Paper Review: Physical Recovery Of Re-usable PSATs

Satellite tags leap forward into the era of Artificial Intelligence! SeaTag-MOD PSATs were used to train an algorithm to differentiate living from dead Green Sturgeons in the San Francisco Bay area. This was made possible by the physical recovery of tags for a frequency analysis with complete datasets.

Read The Paper Review

Affordability Of High Capability Wildlife Studies

Cost is often the largest hindrance to satellite tagging studies. How can a relevant sample size be obtained in order to produce a statistically meaningful study? In a world of competitive science and frequently constrained budgets the solution is not only technological innovation but also economic innovation. Learn more about the economic innovation offered by SeaTags™ and SonarPoint™ Hydrophone Recorders.

Read the may 2020 newsletter here

Acoustic Arrays For Sound Source Localization

Sound source arrays work by obtaining a precisely time-synchronized acoustic recording from three or more hydrophone locations. By using the difference in which the sound is received by each recording location it is possible to accurately determine where a sound source originated along with directional heading and speed.

Satellite Tags For The Dynamic Management Of Sea Turtles

In the management of sea turtles and other at risk species we are suffering from a sparsity of sensors. This leaves our wildlife and fisheries managers often guessing to make decisions that effectively mitigate risk to animals while limiting impact on fishing, shipping and other activities at sea. Argos satellite tags can be a powerful tool to inform decision making.

Sea Turtle management & more!

The Economics of Ropeless Fishing

Presented By Marco Flagg
Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Gear Innovation Summit 2020
Halifax, Nova Scotia
February 11-12

Watch Marco's full presentation

Ropeless Fishing Highlighted at DFO Summit

Ropeless fishing technology presented at the DFO Gear Innovation Summit explores the economic viability of ropeless gear. Read how fishers in New South Wales have increased their profitability using Desert Star's ropeless gear commercially since 2012.

READ Steve's story

SonarPoint Underwater Passive Acoustic Recorder & Localizing Toolkit

The SonarPoint system is the third generation of DSS underwater acoustics monitoring toolkit. SonarPoint features include localization capabilities, flexible storage capacities, long run-time and easy to service components at an affordable price.

California Requires Ropeless Fishing

It’s been a longtime coming, but the outcome was always very clear.

The preservation of our world’s oceans, and especially conservation of animals like majestic whales is a higher priority than keeping slightly lower cost crab or lobster on the table for a few more years. READ MORE

New Spawning Detector Tag

In order to best explain the Spawning Detector Tag, I'll break down each topic into questions you should probably be asking. So here we go!

Discover More

The Little SeaTag that Could

The Bay of Fundy 2013; Bryan Morse, a researcher at the University of New Brunswick attached a SeaTag-MOD to the back of an American Lobster. Famed for their size and reluctant taste, Mr Morse was interested in time spent in deep and shallow waters by the lobsters. According to schedule, the SeaTag-MOD's popped off one by one and journeyed to the surface to convey the secrets of the American Lobster. Yet, for one SeaTag-MOD, that journey was far from over, for it would voyage three years and 2,800 miles, still intact and useable...

Preventing Whale Entanglements; Pilots in Progress

In this edition you'll learn about Ropeless Fishing pilot projects in the works; spanning from North East Canada to Massachusetts and the Pacific North West coast. Valuable experience and tips from the first Ropeless Fishery (New South Wales, Australia) also offer insight into "the bag that saves lives". As well as new gear marking and de-conflicting through the Ropeless Fisher App, which offers fishers and regulators more efficient means of gear marking and visibility.

Expanding the Freshwater Researchers Toolkit

In this issue, you'll learn about research currently being done with Desert Star's SeaTag line and what technological insights and innovations have now enabled the us ofe PSATs in freshwater applications.

It's Time to Get Serious About Preventing Whale Entanglements

It's time to get serious about preventing whale entanglements. In conjunction with continuing support and new innovations in our SeaTag line, Desert Star is also emphasizing the importance of preventing marine mammal entanglements with our ARC-1XD and future ARC-2. Record numbers of cetacean species were entangled last year off the costs of America and Canada's shores.

Charting New Waters in Ocean Technology

Among PSAT, SeaTag devices are of course the relative newcomer with first shipments occurring in late 2011. Other PSAT tags such as from Wildlife Computers or Microwave Telemetry have been around since the 1990's. While SeaTag devices harbor important innovations such asthe use of a magnetometer to obtain more accurate...

SeaTags

We are pleased to share a new collaborative research paper, with Pete Klimley, Marco Flagg, and Alex Hearn. For those scientists who practice satellite tracking of aquatic animals with archival tags, the positions of the animals when underwater are estimated from irradiance and sea surface temperature.

Tracking Halibut & Monkfish w/Pop-up Satellite Tags -

This months newsletter highlights one of Sea-Tags unique capabilities; tracking demersal commercial species. Tracking fish in the absence of light is considerably more difficult, requires a significant amount of time to develop the appropriate methods, and is quite novel...