Marlin Makes Record Crossing Of Pacific Ocean

[mrmoshe]

Marlin makes record crossing of Pacific Ocean

Sydney - A black marlin caught and tagged off Australia's north coast four years ago has turned up on the other side of the Pacific Ocean off Costa Rica, Australian fisheries officials said on Friday.

The New South Wales Fisheries Department (NSWFD) said on Friday the marlin had been caught off the coast of Costa Rica in Central America after swimming an estimated 13 000km.

The distance was officially the longest for a black marlin recaptured since tagging began in 1973.

Cairns charter boat owner Beryl Yates caught the marlin while out fishing with her husband Neil aboard their vessel Tropic Sea.

Yates tagged the 15kg fish and released it, thinking no more about it until Wednesday when she received a letter from the NSWFD, which oversees Australia's participation in the worldwide game fish tagging program.

She said on Friday she was "thrilled to bits" to know that her black marlin had lived more than four years and travelled so far but acknowledged the fish had likely been cooked and eaten by now.

"People often say that tagging the marlin is just as bad as killing them because it stresses them and they sink to the bottom and die," Yates said. "Well, this proves that they don't."

She said the information from Costa Rica did not say how big the black marlin had grown to be when caught, but it was likely to have reached at least 175kg and would have been brought in by a commercial fishing boat. - Sapa-AFP