Seals Tagged To Transmit Ocean Data

Seals have helped gather a decade of information from some of the harshest polar environments inaccessible to man, with technology designed by scientists.

The data collected from the remote and icy seas will now be made available to academics around the world.

Since 2004, a "small army'' of seals wearing sensors designed and made at the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews has produced nearly 400,000 environmental profiles of the Southern Ocean.

The sensors are said to be non-invasive and fall off when the seals moult, and the university said they are the only devices of their kind that can be attached to animals.

The tags sent short pieces of information periodically back to researchers via satellites, in a process likened to tweeting.

The data was then processed in St Andrews and shared with international scientists and the Met office for use in weather forecasting.

Dr Lars Boehme, a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, said: "The information sent back to us gives us details about the seal's immediate physical environment. It's like tweeting.

"Changes in the polar oceans have global ramifications and a significant influence on weather and climate. Sustained observations are required to detect, interpret and respond to change and a strategic system of observations combining a range of platforms is critical in maintaining the flow of information."

The portal containing the decade of data, named Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole-to-Pole, is launched today.

Mike Fedak, a professor of biology at the university, said: "The fact that animals have collected the data is an interesting innovation in ocean observation.

"But perhaps of more general importance is that data from these remote and inaccessible places now gives us a much clearer picture of the state of the world's oceans.

"We have shown that data from these far-flung locations is critical to understanding the broader state of the global ocean."