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Lost and found

This towbody that houses an advanced broadband acoustic echosounder was lost in waters east of Provincetown in October, 2006 during a routine calibration off of the R/V Tioga. WHOI Senior Scientist Tim Stanton, left, oversaw the mission and led a subsequent, unsuccessful attempt to find the equipment using imaging sonar. Recently, however, Michael Walsh of Integrity Fishing Corporation in Stoughton, Ma., recovered the towbody in a bottom trawl. Noting the WHOI property sticker, the fisherman called WHOI and personally informed Stanton of the find. The system is designed to be towed behind a ship in order to image aggregations of fish in the water. Stanton uses the system, in collaboration with J. Mike Jech of NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (at right), to improve abundance estimates of fish. Stanton and his colleagues plan to try to turn on the instrument sometime this spring.

(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)