Abstract
The Census of Marine Life is developing POST, a seabed acoustic array for tracking marine animals. The long-range plan involves the deployment of 30 or more cross-shelf monitoring lines forming a permanent continental-scale array, each consisting of autonomous seabed nodes spaced at roughly 1 km intervals. Nodes would be modular and use an acoustic modem to periodically communicate with an overhead ship, which would upload data and download new programming. 2004 was a large-scale test of the tracking array component using 135 km of listening lines and 1050 acoustically tagged juvenile salmon (12–15 cm long). Detection rates for individual fish crossing 20 km long acoustic lines were approximately 91%, and precise measurements of migration timing, speed of movement and survival were obtained for both the freshwater and early marine phases. In subsequent years we plan to include additional oceanographic sensors to provide detailed data on changes in bottom temperature, salinity, and currents over time and implement acoustic modems to allow remote data upload from a visiting boat. These data could then be meshed with the fish movement data to describe how animals move relative to changes in the three dimensional structure of the ocean that they are migrating through.
Published Version
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