Research scientists launched a high-tech ocean buoy in Saco Bay Thursday morning, the first of 3 being deployed to gather data to help the aquaculture industry.
It's all part of a $20 million initiative funded by the National Science Foundation and involving faculty from the University of Maine and the University of New England.
The program is known as SEANET, which stands for the Maine Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network.
UNE researcher Adam St. Gelais says the project's goal is gain a better understanding of the inshore coastal environment.
"When we're talking about sustainable ecological aquaculture we're talking about things like mussels or oysters or scallops or seaweed," he says. "These are things that typically you don't feed and you rely on the environment to provide food for them."
And these buoys, he says, will help scientists better understand that environment by measuring factors such as temperature, wave action and water content.