(Vaki Riverwatcher) to Quantify Fish Migrations in the Murray-Darling Basin
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Assessment of an infrared fish counter (Vaki Riverwatcher) to quantify fish migrations in the Murray-Darling Basin Lee Baumgartner, Mick Bettanin, Jarrod McPherson, Matthew Jones, Brenton Zampatti and Kathleen Beyer Industry & Investment NSW Narrandera Fisheries Centre PO Box 182 Narrandera NSW 2700 Australia January 2010 Industry & Investment NSW – Fisheries Final Report Series No. 116 ISSN 1837-2112 Assessment of an infrared fish counter (Vaki Riverwatcher) to quantify fish migrations in the Murray-Darling Basin January 2010 Authors: Lee Baumgartner, Mick Bettanin, Jarrod McPherson, Matthew Jones, Brenton Zampatti, Kathleen Beyer Published By: Industry & Investment NSW (now incorporating NSW Department of Primary Industries) Postal Address: PO Box 21 Cronulla NSW 2230 Internet: www.dpi.nsw.gov.au © Department of Industry and Investment (Industry & Investment NSW) and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority This work is copyright. 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The publishers do not accept any form of liability, be it contractual, tortuous or otherwise, for the contents of this report for any consequences arising from its use or any reliance placed on it. The information, opinions and advice contained in this report may not relate to, or be relevant to, a reader’s particular circumstance. ISSN 1837-2112 Note: Prior to July 2004, this report series was published by NSW Fisheries as the ‘NSW Fisheries Final Report Series’ with ISSN number 1440-3544. Then, following the formation of the NSW Department of Primary Industries the report series was published as the ‘NSW Department of Primary Industries – Fisheries Final Report Series’ with ISSN number 1449-9967. The report series is now published by Industry & Investment NSW as the ‘Industry & Investment NSW – Fisheries Final Report Series’ with ISSN number 1837-2112. Contents iii TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS..............................................................................................................................III LIST OF TABLES.........................................................................................................................................IV LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................................................................IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................................... V NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY ................................................................................................................VI 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................. 9 1.1. The Sea to Hume program............................................................................................................. 9 1.2. Electronic monitoring of freshwater fish using hydroacoustics .................................................. 10 1.3. Infrared technology – the Vaki Riverwatcher.............................................................................. 11 1.4. Study site ..................................................................................................................................... 11 1.5. The purpose of this study............................................................................................................. 15 2. THE INFLUENCE OF TURBIDITY AND MIGRATION RATE ON EFFICIENCY OF THE RIVERWATCHER SYSTEM ............................................................................................................. 16 2.1. Introduction................................................................................................................................. 16 2.2. Methods ....................................................................................................................................... 17 2.3. Results ....................................................................................................................................... 18 2.4. Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 22 3. USING ELECTRONIC MONITORING TECHNIQUES TO DETERMINE ASPECTS OF MIGRATORY FISH BEHAVIOUR................................................................................................... 23 3.1. Introduction................................................................................................................................. 23 3.2. Methods ....................................................................................................................................... 24 3.3. Results ....................................................................................................................................... 28 3.4. Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 32 4. REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................... 36 APPENDIX 1: Future research suggestions .............................................................................................. 40 Assessment of an infrared fish counter Baumgartner et al. iv Contents LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1. Summary of Riverwatcher detections for controlled tank trials undertaken at various turbidity levels and migration rates on Silver perch (Bidyanus bidyanus) ................................ 19 Table 2.2. Length and depth statistics of species used to determine optimal length/depth ratios for programming into Winari software ........................................................................................... 20 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. A schematic representation of the scanner unit demonstrating the connections to the control unit............................................................................................................................................. 12 Figure 1.2. Example of output from the Winari control software................................................................ 13 Figure 1.3. Map of the mid-Murray River showing the location of the Lock 10 study site where field trials were undertaken................................................................................................................ 14 Figure 2.1. Mean number of fish from riverwatcher counts and actual counts for each level of turbidity assessed during the study........................................................................................................... 18 Figure 3.1. The guiding funnel mounted to the entrance of the scanner unit and the same unit deployed within the fishway. .................................................................................................................... 25 Figure 3.2. A plan view of the fishway exit channel demonstrating the deployment of DIDSON units in relation to the channel walls and fishway baffle........................................................................ 26 Figure 3.3. Plan view of the fishway exit channel showing the layout of each experimental treatment comprising the trap, Vaki Riverwatcher, DIDSON 1 and DIDSON 2. ..................................... 27 Figure 3.4. Total fish detections from each of the three gear types used during this study. ........................ 29 Figure 3.5. A scatterplot comparison of fish caught in the fishtrap against fish numbers estimated by the riverwatcher......................................................................................................................... 29 Figure 3.6. A comparison of riverwatcher-determined fish lengths and those of fish caught in the trap throughout the trial. ................................................................................................................... 30 Figure 3.7. Summary of different fish behaviour recorded from DIDSON footage for each treatment. ..... 31 Baumgartner et al. Assessment of an infrared fish counter Acknowledgements v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report was completed with funding from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority under the native fish strategy’s ‘Innovative Fish Counting’ initiative. A Fish Passage Task Force comprising representatives from several jurisdictions acted as a ‘pseudo’ steering committee for the project. The authors gratefully acknowledge guidance received from Martin Mallen-Cooper, Ivor Stuart, Jim Barrett, Ben Dyer, Brian Cooper, Andrew Berghuis, Brenton Erdmann and Robert Alia. We would like to thank staff from Lock 10 including Norm Boyd, Jeremy Pappin and Danny Bourke for assistance with field trials.