In order to more successfully study the round goby in the Baltic Sea and obtain the necessary data for the species management plan, this year alsothe LIFE REEFproject organizes the marking of the round goby with a T-bar mark and their release into the sea. The LIFE REEF project together with the Scientific Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment "BIOR" (Institute) invites the public to report the cases of catching of marked round goby. There is a reward for reporting.

Together, 8000 round gobies will be marked during the project - 4000 of them in the Gulf of Riga and 4000 in the open part of the Baltic Sea. The T-bar tag is placed on the upper fin of each fish and contains the words "BIOR RIGA" and a special four-digit code.
The round goby isan invasive speciesthat has become one of the dominant fish species in Latvian coastal waters in a relatively short period of time. The round goby is characterized by a highly aggressive lifestyle - it negatively affects several local species and increases the pressure on the food base available in the environment, therefore it has a high potential to negatively affect species and habitats in protected marine areas.

"In the near future, a plan for the management of the round goby needs to be developed. In order to do this, it is necessary to be able to characterize the seasonal and spatial distribution of the species. Up to now, the available information on the migration of round goby in the Baltic Sea has been incomplete, therefore the project carries out the marking of round goby. Based on this knowledge, it will be possible to more accurately identify possible solutions to ensure a more effective and scientific data-based management of round goby fishing on the coast of Latvia. However, the most important successful stage of the research is the recovery of the marked round goby. Based on this data, we will learn the stage of migration carried out by the round goby in a certain period of time," says the Institute's Fish Resources Ivars Putnis, head of the Maritime Division of the research department.

Each case of marked round goby should be reported to the Marine Department of the Institute's Fish Resources Research Department by phone at 20239304 or by writing an e-mail to ivars.putnis@bior.lv. When communicating, it is necessary to report the code visible on the sign, the full length of the fish in cm, the fishing gear, fishing duration, date and location coordinates. It is also necessary to send a photo of the fish so that the special code can be seen on it. The caught fish can also be frozen and stored whole for later transfer to the institute.