Relationships between fish and their use of habitats are critical to understanding potential adverse effects from industrial water uses and for assessing effectiveness of management actions involving water extraction, dam operations, and habitat restoration efforts. Presence and absence, timing, and behavior are key to understanding fish and habitat relationships.
Our experience documenting fish habitat use includes a multi-year study funded by BC Hydro to assess use of historical spawning habitat by an endangered sub-population of white sturgeon in Arrow Lakes Reservoir on the Columbia River.
White sturgeon use of the spawning area was documented:
Potential release of milt by white sturgeon in the historical spawning area:
Crossman, J. A., G. Martel, P. N. Johnson and K. Bray. 2011. The use of Dual-frequency Identification SONar (DIDSON) to document white sturgeon activity in the Columbia River, Canada. Journal of Applied Ichthyology 27 (Suppl. 2), 53-57.
Another example of our habitat use work is a study in which we used DIDSON to assess fish occupancy of mesohabitats under the ice in a multi-year study conducted on the Athabasca River in northern Alberta.
A pair of burbot were identified in this sandy substrate habitat:
Let us know if you want to discuss the use of sonar technologies to assess relationships between fish and their use of habitats.