Tuna fish being tracked by scientists starts zooming up the M5 – but all is not as it seems
SCIENTISTS tracking a tuna detected something fishy when it started zooming up the M5.
The Atlantic bluefin was being monitored by researchers for several days with the aid of a satellite tag.
The device then detached itself and washed up on a Cornish beach, but it had gone when they went to retrieve it.
A GPS check found it was on the M5 to Birmingham, and the team suspected it had been picked up by a holidaymaker.
They made an unsuccessful appeal for its return on local radio, before the tracker moved again, and was eventually traced to the Lancashire village of Ribby.
A further appeal was heard by the wife of Brian Shuttleworth, who found the tag tangled in seaweed at Whitsand Bay.
Brian said he called the number on it but had a poor signal, adding: “I thought, ‘Right, when I get home I’ll ring it up and organise for sending it back’.”
It is now in the post to the University of Exeter, being tracked all the way.
Project leader Dr Lucy Hawkes said tags are designed to detach after six days.
She added: “They are incredibly useful for our work so I wasn’t ready to give up.”