PLEASE NOTE: We are still working on formatting the online database.
As we progress, we will be providing user names in the future, but it is a work in progress. New functionality will continue to be added.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
ACT formally began to take shape in 2006 during an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission – Atlantic Sturgeon Technical Committee Meeting. As researchers began utilizing acoustic telemetry technology more extensively along the eastern coast of the United States, the potential benefits of collaborating in order to share telemetry data from existing arrays beyond those in their own system became apparent. What started with 15 researchers working on Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon that year has expanded to over 65 from Maine to Florida working with over 45 different species. We are also collaborating with researchers from the Canadian Maritimes as well as individuals of the Florida Acoustic Cooperative Telemetry (FACT) group.
Researchers maintain their own arrays, so transmitters deployed and array sizes are often dependent on funding. It is up to the individual researchers to provide information regarding transmitters that they have deployed to the network, and to date each researcher provides as much or as little information as they feel necessary. This way, researches can maintain a level of involvement in the network what is appropriate for their needs; from just sharing general tag code information to collaborating with other researcher and leveraging other arrays to gain additional funding. Currently there are over 5000 known transmitters deployed since 2004, with over 1000 deployed in 2010 alone. This corresponds to 49 identified species currently being studied along the east coast.
As we continue to develop and enhance the ACT network, we hope to make exchanging information about “unknown” transmitter codes simpler and more straightforward, further strengthen collaboration. One of the main challenges ACT faces as we continue to expand is developing and maintaining standards in data collecting and sharing, so as we grow, we will be able to incorporate our telemetry data with other physical/environmental information systems, further enhancing potentials.
This site contains a link to our master transmitter code and primary researcher contact lists that are stored as GoogleDoc spreadsheets, viewable and downloadable for members of ACT. It also contains a transmitter code search which allows researchers to search for their transmitters. Summary information will be provided and can be downloaded in a .csv file. Use the links to find out more details about this tools.