The team prepares to attach a satellite-linked transmitter to a leatherback turtle at Litoghahira Beach on Santa Isabel Island. Several of the leatherbacks nesting on this beach are unusually large, highlighting the importance of beach monitoring data.

The team attaches a satellite-linked transmitter and a Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT tag) to a leatherback turtle at Litoghahira Beach on Santa Isabel Island. A Solomon Islands biologist expresses the benefits of collaboration with NOAA scientists.

The team visits Baniata Village at Rendova Island. Beaches adjacent to this village once supported a large leatherback nesting population. Today, a community-based conservation and monitoring program is working to restore leatherbacks to these beaches.

Leatherback turtles usually appear in Monterey Bay and California coastal waters during August and September. Scientists from the Southwest Fisheries Science Center's Marine Turtle Research Program are using molecular genetics and satellite telemetry as research tools to accompany these amazing animals on journeys of new discoveries as they migrate around the ocean.

Copper rockfish can be found from the northern Gulf of Alaska to central Baja California. Off southern California they are mostly found to depths of 90 meters.

Gopher rockfish range from southern Oregon to southern Baja California, and are found in water up to 80 meters deep.

Black-and-Yellow rockfish range from southern Oregon to central Baja California, and are found in water up to 37 meters deep.

The NOAA FRV Oscar Dyson is a very quiet ship while underway, which allows scientists to send acoustic pulses into the water and to retrieve an acoustic outline back of fish schools and other marine life with little interference from ship noise.

The Continuous Underway Fish Egg Sampler, or CUFES, is a machine that continuously pumps a sample of water from the top 3 meters of the ocean while the ship is moving. The water is filtered in order to trap all of the fish eggs floating in it, which are then identified and logged into a data software program.

A CTD is a device that measures the Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth of the water column. The CTD is lowered by a winch to 200 meters depth and sensors on the device that are linked to a computer on board create a profile of the water column. Water samples can be taken at different depths, triggered by the scientist on board.