Behavioral results from acoustically tagged fish using innovative techniques for analyzing three-dimensional data

Acoustic tags have been used to monitor the swimming patterns of downstream migrating salmon smolts approaching various dams on the Columbia River, USA. Downstream migrating yearling chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), steelhead (O. mykiss), sockeye (O. nerka), and sub-yearling chinook smolts were surgically implanted with acoustic tags. Fish were tracked in three-dimensions as they approached and passed into the turbine intakes, spillways, and surface bypass channel entrances at the dams during the spring and summer outmigrations of 2005-2009. A number of advances in the analysis methods, techniques and software have been made over the past several years. Some of these improvements include the development of fish density algorithms, stream trace modeling analysis, and advances in three-dimensional animation programs. Three-dimensional tracks of fish approaching the turbine intakes, spillways, and surface bypass channel entrances will be presented. Concentrations of fish passage will be presented as three-dimensional fish densities superimposed over dam structures.