North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission

Technical Report 15

Table of Contents

The RAFOS Ocean Acoustic Monitoring (ROAM) Tag: A Highly Accurate Fish Tag for At-sea Movement Studies

Authors:
Camrin D. Braun, Godi Fischer, H. Thomas Rossby, Heather Furey, Amy Bower, and Simon R. Thorrold

Abstract Excerpt:
Animal migrations are some of the most fascinating and impressive biological phenomena on the planet. Nonetheless, until recently, marine ecologists have known remarkably little about the specific movements of large pelagic fishes due to the logistic challenges of tracking fish in a vast, largely opaque ocean. Light-level geolocation techniques using current generation pop-up satellite archival transmitting (PSAT) tags generally exhibit poor accuracy (±100–200 km; ~10,000 km2) even under best-case situations when movements are confined to surface waters (< 100 m) during daytime hours (Braun et al. 2015, 2018). Poor accuracy has, in turn, led to a paucity of mechanistic studies addressing the mechanisms influencing at-sea habitat use by salmonids. Similarly, identifying the location and cause of ocean-phase mortality remains a critical question for improving salmon management and conservation efforts. This knowledge is critical as we continue to lean heavily on marine-capture fisheries to sustain human populations worldwide while experiencing drastic changes in the Earth’s climate and oceans.

*This is the first paragraph of an extended abstract. Download the full abstract below.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23849/npafctr15/168.170.

Citation

Braun, C.D., G. Fischer, H.T. Rossby, H. Furey, A. Bower, and S.R. Thorrold.  2019.  The RAFOS Ocean Acoustic Monitoring (ROAM) tag: a highly accurate fish tag for at-sea movement studies.  N. Pac. Anadr. Fish Comm. Tech. Rep. 15: 168–170.  https://doi.org/10.23849/npafctr15/168.170.