Abstract
The surgical incision required to insert acoustic transmitters into fish peritoneal cavities is typically closed with sutures, staples, or cyanoacrylate adhesive. This study evaluated a novel tag insertion technique that did not use any method of wound closure. Twenty-six adult rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and 26 adult brown trout (Salmo trutta) received a small, 6 mm abdominal incision. A dummy acoustic transmitter tag was inserted into half (N = 13) of the fish in each species. Neither group received any wound closure; no sutures, staples, nor adhesives were used. Tag retention, wound healing, and fish survival were monitored weekly for 13 weeks post-surgery. No fish died over the course of the trial. Tag retention was 100% and 85% in the tagged rainbow trout and brown trout, respectively. The wounds in the untagged rainbow trout were all completely healed by six weeks post-surgery, while wounds of the tagged rainbow trout were completely healed at nine weeks post-surgery. Similarly, wounds in the untagged and tagged brown trout groups were completely healed by the fifth and eighth weeks respectively. This study documents the effectiveness of using a small incision with no wound closure methods during insertion of acoustic tags into rainbow trout and brown trout peritoneal cavities.
Highlights
Acoustic transmitters are used to track fish movements over time and space (Leber and Blankenship 2011)
The tags lost in the two brown trout were both ejected from the incision site
Dissection at the end of the study revealed that most of the tags remained loose in the peritoneal cavity, while a small number were encased in body tissue
Summary
Acoustic transmitters are used to track fish movements over time and space (Leber and Blankenship 2011). To promote healing and tag retention, transmitter incision sites have been closed with surgical staples, monofilament or silk sutures, cyanoacrylate, or a combination of these methods (Wagner et al 2011; Wargo Rub et al 2014). Issues with these wound closure techniques include inflammation around the incision site, poor healing, loss of sutures in the aquatic environment, risk of puncturing of organs with the suturing needle, and accumulation of organic matter on suture sites (Swanberg et al 1999; Wagner et al 2000; Wargo Rub et al 2011; Schoonyan et al 2017). Post-tagging wound closure without the use of sutures, staples, or any additional measures has only been lightly evaluated. Skov et al (2005)
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