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Researcher Information

Biography

Kurt M. Schaefer received his M.S. in biology in 1986 at San Diego State University. He has been investigating the biology of tropical tunas, as a research scientist at the IATTC, since 1978. His current research focuses on movements and behavior of tropical tunas, through conventional and electronic tagging studies, and the estimation of life history characteristics of tropical tunas including reproductive biology and age and growth. He has also investigated the population structure of yellowfin tuna throughout the Pacific, through studies of geographic variation in morphometrics and meristics and compared the results with those from tagging and genetic studies.

Kurt has actively participated on tuna tagging cruises in the eastern and central Pacific for approximtely 30 years, and in recent years has been in charge of IATTC tuna-tagging cruises (focused on bigeye tuna) to the equatorial eastern Pacific. In addition to conventional tagging of tunas with plastic dart tags, he has been surgically implanting archival tags in bigeye since 2000, and more recently in skipjack tuna. Kurt currently leads TOPPs's yellowfin tuna tagging team.

Contact Information:
8604 La Jolla Shores Drive
La Jolla, California USA 92037-1508
Phone: (858) 546-7159

Selected Publications

Schaefer, K.M. and D.W. Fuller. 2005. Behavior of bigeye (Thunnus obesus) and skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis) tunas within aggregations associated with floating objects in the equatorial eastern Pacific. Mar. Biol., 146(4): 781-792.

Schaefer, K.M. and D.W. Fuller. 2005. Conventional and archival tagging of bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Inter. Comm. Conser. Atlan. Tunas, Coll. Vol. Sci. Pap., 57(2): 67-84.

Schaefer, K. M., and D.W. Fuller. 2002. Movements, behavior, and habitat selection of bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) in the eastern equatorial Pacific, ascertained through archival tags. Fish. Bull. 100 (4), in press.

Schaefer, K. M. 2001. Reproductive biology of tunas. In: Tunas: Ecological Physiology and Evolution. (Eds.) Block, B.A. and E.D. Stevens. Academic Press: 225-270.

Schaefer, K. M.1999. Comparative study of some morphological features of yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) and bigeye (Thunnus obesus) tunas. Inter-Amer. Trop. Tuna Comm., Bull., 21 (7):489-526.

Schaefer, K.M. 1998. Reproductive biology of yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Inter-Amer. Trop. Tuna Comm., Bull., 21 (5): 201-272.

Affiliations

Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission