PNNL

Abstract

Background: The ability to detect the presence of fish in the fishway at a dam is critical to understanding their behavior in the fishways during the course of their migration. Acoustic telemetry has been becoming a critical technology for investigating fish migration and behavior in marine and riverine systems. However, there have been no published studies reporting the systematic evaluation of both detection efficiency based on number of transmitted signals and detection probabilities based on number of fish detected. In this study, The Juvenile Salmon Acoustic Telemetry System (JSATS) was selected because of its higher carrier frequency and shorter signal duration compared to other systems. The efficacy of acoustic telemetry in a fishway was evaluated using both controlled field experiments and live fish at Wanapum Dam. Results: The detection efficiencies from the controlled field experiments were over 80% for most locations and nearly 100% in the fish ladder entrance when the tags are within 10 m from the hydrophones. The detection probabilities for the live fish experiment were 100% at all deployment locations. Conclusion: This study enables researchers to understand both the fish behavior in the fishways and to design better migration studies using acoustic telemetry.