The water quality buoy also uses an acoustic telemetry receiver that collects data on fish that have been tagged with a transmitter for research. Sanctuary staff collect and look at the data in partnership with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and the Mid-Atlantic Acoustic Telemetry Observation System. The data helps sanctuary staff and partners better understand what fish species are in the sanctuary, including any rare, endangered, or threatened species. Since 2019, the receiver has recorded 26,715 detections from 44 tagged fish.