Newsletter Vol. 1 (2) March 2004
The purpose of this newsletter is to provide an update on new developments at Hallprint in relation to fish tags. The areas covered are general developments, new dart tag designs, new food safe PIT tags and an updated web site.
General developments
Hallprint has pursued a culture of continuous improvement and quality management since its inception in the mid 1970s. Improvements have included reductions in production lead time, the development of new product lines and the further incremental improvement of existing lines. We would be pleased to point out the qualitative and practical advantages of each or our tag types over others available elsewhere on the market. We have certainly not stood still!
New dart tag designs
Hallprint now has an expanded range of dart tag styles with seven different versions of plastic tipped dart tag heads applied with three different diameter applicator needles. Hallprint is renowned for the quality and integrity of its dart tags and we now have tags that suit all species of finfish from 20 cm to 200 cm. Recently we launched two brand new designs which are already being tested. These are the elongated-barb extra small (PDXL) and large (PDAL) dart tags. If you are interested in using our world best dart tags, please contact David Hall, a former experienced fisheries researcher and manager.
Most of the major world tuna tagging programs in the last 2 decades have used Hallprint’s plastic tipped dart tags. These and other programs have delivered superb results and have demonstrated the superiority of our dart tags over those available elsewhere.
New brochure and web site
In addition to a new product brochure which shows major tag types to actual size, Hallprint now has a revised web site with considerable information on tag types and tagging methods. It also includes a photo gallery from clients showing our tags being used by researchers around the world. Please contact David Hall on davidhall@hallprint.com.au if you wish to obtain copies of the new brochure or free tag samples.
New food safe PIT tags
Hallprint has been involved in negotiations with the New Zealand Government over the commercialization of food safe PIT tags or passive integrated transponder tags. Commercial production of these tags is expected to commence in the near future. Tags will be 134.2 KHz ISO standard and will be readable by most ISO readers/scanners. The point of differentiation with all other PIT tags available on the market is that they are encapsulated in food grade surgical plastic. While others have tried to do this, all previous formulations did not perform adequately due to the impact of water pressure on the electronic components and the infusion of water across the capsule over time. The type FST PIT tags were tested extensively in New Zealand over several years during which time over 22,000 snapper were tagged and 1,700 recaptures obtained.
While glass capsules may perform marginally better than FST capsules in terms of read distance etc, food safety is becoming a bigger issue for fisheries scientists to contemplate as government and industry put greater pressure in this area from a risk management and public liability perspective. Glass capsules that can be shattered are clearly not food safe.
Please contact David Hall if you are interested in trialing the new food safe PIT tags.
Other designs
Hallprint has continued to trial innovative new tag designs in cooperation with fisheries scientists world-wide. These have included halibut operculum tags, streamer attachments to DST tags and tags for marking macro-algae amongst others. Our brochure and web site depicts only our most common tag types.
Pending designs
Hallprint intends to be at the forefront of new tagging technology, particularly relating to tags used for wild fisheries stock assessment and aquaculture purposes. Specifically we are in the process of developing new “in water” plastic tipped dart tags using our superior markers for game fish tagging programs. We are also involved in talks with scientists developing genetic tags which aim to assess harvest rates of fish populations using tissue sampling and PCR analysis. Interestingly, there is growing evidence that more expensive techniques such as PIt tagging and genetic marking, when used in combination with conventional tags, could be far more accurate than traditional CPUE analysis, fishery independent sampling and age composition analysis in terms of assessing the status of fish populations.
David Hall
Managing Director
Hallprint Pty Ltd
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