Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) began in 2000 as one of many projects formed by Census of Marine Life, an organization whose goal is to help understand and explain the diversity and abundances of the ocean in the past, present, and future. After they were formed, TOPP began by building a coalition of researchers from all over the world to find and study predators of the Pacific Ocean. Since then, they have satellite-tagged 22 different species and more than 2,000 animals. These animals include elephant seals, great white sharks, leatherback turtles, squid, albatrosses, and more.
Through the efforts of TOPP, information never before accessed by humans was now available, such as migration routes and ecosystems, but from the animals', rather than human, aspects. It also became possible to learn about the ocean itself through use of the animals, because they can go where humans cannot. We learn through their everyday actions, and through these data, researchers have been able to determine better ways of protecting endangered species, such as the leatherback turtle.
Read more about Tagging Of Pacific Predators: Organization, Tagging, Programs, Penelope Seal, The Great Turtle Race, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words tagging and/or pacific:
“The 5307th has collapsed. From a medical viewpoint, they’re finished as a fighting unit.... I have never seen human beings in such condition. They’re drained, physically and psychologically drained. I’m not tagging them for specific ailments. I’m simply marking every man in the outfit A.O.E.—accumulation of everything.”
—Samuel Fuller, U.S. screenwriter, and Milton Sperling. Samuel Fuller. Doc (Andrew Duggan)
“Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches a truer doctrine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)