The fishing industry is going high-tech in an effort to track northern cod in waters off Newfoundland and Labrador to collect more information about its movement.

Industry and government are spending about $9 million to place acoustic tags on codfish that undergo significant annual migrations, the movement of which is tracked by an array of acoustic receivers that have been deployed in waters up to 200 miles off eastern Canada.

The information will complement the annual stock assessment, which had limited information to go by for this year’s assessment.

Alberto Wareham, who is in Barcelona for the current discussion, agrees with the minimal harvest rate of two to three per cent of the stock, which has a biomass of 450,000 tonnes, about double that of five or six years ago.

Close to 800 fish have been tagged, and the plan is to do another few hundred. They hope to complete the Fishery Improvement Project by 2025.

Once a year, a drone will be sent out with receivers to collect the data and find out where the fish are, where they’re spawning, among other details.