Fish Behavior
We have experience conducting and advising fish behavior studies utilizing a variety of tools and approaches. Project experience includes individual-level (e.g. radio tracking, mark-recapture, visual observation) and population-level (e.g. hydroacoustic, electro-fishing, experimental netting) studies. Interpretation of these observational and experimental studies has relied on knowledge of fish physiology, ecology, and behavior, and a variety of analytical tools including: statistical estimation and inference, foraging models, bioenergetics models, and spatially-explicit, individual-based models of fish movement.
Review of Fish Deterrent Devices and Recommendations for a Delaware River Blast Site
Under a prime contract held by Versar, published studies on fish deterrent devices were reviewed and recommendations were made regarding the use of such devices for excluding juvenile American shad (Alosa sapidissima) from a blast site on the Delaware River. The similar problem of repelling fish from water intakes at power plants has stimulated development of devices to behaviorally exclude fish, and that research formed the basis for this review. Behavioral exclusion devices include strobe lights, pneumatic poppers, underwater drones, high frequency sound generators, low frequency sound generators, bubble curtains, and hammers. The report included the 1985 review by the Electric Power Research Institute (SWES 1986) and subsequent research, including publications in press. The review and recommendations considered such factors as fish species, life stages, physical environment, time of day, and background acoustic characteristics. Based on the information available at the time, high-intensity, high-frequency sound was recommended as the most promising method for repelling juvenile American shad at the blast site. Some caveats, however, were placed on that recommendation. First, the studies utilizing high frequency sound were conducted using adult fish; second, the studies were conducted in non-flowing systems; and third, the studies were conducted in relatively deep environments where the propagation of sound was less influenced by surface and bottom effects than would occur at the blast site. Additionally, the controlled experimental studies utilized blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis) and alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) rather than American shad (Alosa sapidissima). Thus, use of high frequency sound as a means of repelling American shad at the Delaware River blast site was characterized as an experimental undertaking.
Behavior of American Shad and Design of Passage Facilities on the Susquehanna River
Technical support was provided for fish behavior studies conducted as part of the American shad (Alosa sapidissima) restoration program on the Susquehanna River. This work was conducted under Versar's contract with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Power Plant Research Program. Assistance included statistical design of behavioral studies, analysis and interpretation of behavioral data, and review of reports prepared by the license holders and their consultants. The studies were conducted using sonic tags and sonar to determine appropriate locations for entrances to fishways, assess the effectiveness of attraction flows, and evaluate behavioral means to deter fish from turbine passage and direct them to alternative passage routes.
This project is also described under the following project categories:
Hydropower and Fisheries
Population Modeling and Stock Assessment
Spatial Dynamics of a Pelagic Planktivore
Behavioral ecology underlying temporal-spatial patterns in the distribution of cisco (Coregonus artedi) was investigated using a combination of hydroacoustic and conventional data collection methods, bioenergetic models, spatially-explicit, individual-based models of aggregation and schooling behavior, and diffusion models. Spatially-explicit, individual-based models were used to link population-level phenomena observable with sonar to hypothesized, individual-level behavior. The individual-based simulations successfully mimicked the large-scale, temporal-spatial patterns in fish distribution. Information on growth rates of the fish and a combined bioenergetics and foraging model were used to examine hypotheses for size-dependent foraging behavior and its relationship to the temporal-spatial patterns in distribution.
This project is also described under the following project category:
Hydroacoustics
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