Wednesday January 7, 2026
Island Free Press —
It’s called Big Red, a 33-inch Red Drum swimming along the East Coast with a satellite tag affixed to its body. Ironically, Big Red’s nearly 3-foot length categorizes it in the smaller/younger adult category of Red Drum, but the information that it gives researchers is of no small significance.
Big Red is one of 33 Red Drum tagged this year by The Red Drum Satellite Tagging Project, a partnership between N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries and the North Carolina Marine & Estuary Foundation. The tracking information, which includes location and water temperature, may teach researchers more about Red Drum stock structure (potential mixing of northern and southern populations), spawning and offshore migrations, and habitat preferences.