2018 article
A non-invasive approach to enumerating White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus Richardson, 1863) using side-scan sonar
Hughes, J. B., Bentz, B., & Hightower, J. E. (2018, April). JOURNAL OF APPLIED ICHTHYOLOGY, Vol. 34, pp. 398–404.
TL;DR:
Results suggest that sidescan sonar can provide a rapid and precise alternative to M/R for estimating sturgeon abundance.
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Added: August 6, 2018
Correspondence Jacob B. Hughes, Idaho Power Company, ID, USA. Email: jhughes@idahopower.com Summary Markrecapture (M/R) surveys are a standard approach for monitoring White Sturgeon (WS) Acipenser transmontanus populations; however, they can be resourceintensive, may affect fish health, and often lack enough precision to detect population change reliably. Hydroacoustics surveys provide a nonintrusive method that is wellestablished in fisheries research, but have been applied relatively seldom to sturgeon populations. During 2016, an alternative method was tested for estimating WS abundance by using sidescan sonar within a 58km reach in the middle Snake River, Idaho, USA, and comparing the results to a standard M/R estimate. Using replicate count data within a NMixture model, the sonar method estimated a lower abundance with higher precision (153, 101–213 95% Bayesian credible interval) than that of M/R (219, 138–398 95% confidence interval). Relative to M/R, sidescan sonar took 75% fewer sampledays, exhibited overlapping abundance estimates, and provided similar sturgeon length distributions. These results suggest that sidescan sonar can provide a rapid and precise alternative to M/R for estimating sturgeon abundance.