Use of Radio Telemetry to Study Juvenile Salmonids in the Columbia River Basin

- An Overview -

Western Fisheries Research CenterColumbia River Research Laboratory

Cook, Washington, USA

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey

NPCC Fish Tagging Forum October 11, 2012

John Beeman

Information Today• A bit about the technology

– Apart from use in adult salmon• Past use of RT with juv. salmonids

– General overview & specific examples– Comparison with results from other methods

• Current use of RT– Why is RT not used as much lately?

• Summary

A bit about the technology (1 of 4)• First used in fish in1968

– Use expanded greatly in1980s • Better electronics, more vendors

• Radio = ~30-300 MHz– Efficient in air, much less so in water

• Ineffective in sea water (high conductivity)• Small transmitter limited to ~ 10 m depth in FW1, 2

– Can be used to advantage (better fish locations)– Range is frequency dependent, but there are tradeoffs

1 Keuchle and Keuchle. 2012. Pages 91-138 in N.S. Adams, J.W. Beeman, and J.H. Eiler, editors. Telemetry Techniques. AFS, Bethesda, Maryland.

2 Beeman et al. 1998. NAJFM 18:458-464

A bit about the technology (2 of 4)• Differences from use in adult salmon

– Smaller fish = smaller tags• No “safe” tag burden exists1

– Published guides range up to 10%, but ≤ 5% is common (less is better)

• Smallest tag to date is ~ 0.2 g– Still getting smaller

• Most studies use a ~95 mm min fish size– Tag burden data does not seem to fit well for smaller fish

1Leidtke and Rub. 2012. Pages 45-87 in N.S. Adams, J.W. Beeman, and J.H. Eiler, editors. Telemetry Techniques. AFS, Bethesda, Maryland.

A bit about the technology (3 of 4)• Tag life related to size and burst rate

– Life is finite (often used with PIT)

5s = 33 d

Data and photo from Lotek Wireless

A bit about the technology (4 of 4)• Small tag = weak signal

– Wise to preserve the received signal• Antenna selection, accounting for system losses

Evans and Stevenson. 2012. Pages 139-162 in N.S. Adams, J.W. Beeman, and J.H. Eiler, editors. Telemetry Techniques. AFS, Bethesda, Maryland.

Past use in juv. salmonids (1 of 3)

• Why?– Primarily evaluations of dam operations on passage and

survival and development of DS passage solutions• Who (tag and detection)?

– Primarily USGS, NOAA Fisheries, Chelan PUD• Some OSU

• What?– Yearling and subyearling Chinook salmon, juvenile

steelhead, sockeye (coho?)• When?

– 1990s-present

Juv. salmonids tagged by USGS in Columbia River Basin

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

Number

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011Year

Behavior

Passage and survival

Cougar Dam

Increased use of acoustic telemetry

Excludes Cowlitz R. and a few other locales

00

Locations of use in main stem

USGS NOAA Chelan PUD

Past use in juv. salmonids (2 of 3)• Coordination among efforts

– Frequency and code use among studies– Often use vendor-specific equipment

• USGS, Chelan PUD = one firm, NOAA built their own• Coordination within efforts

– Within agency for multiple dams• Data system

– Agency-specific (we send proofed data to COE)• Geographical coverage

– Nearly all main stem dams in Columbia/Snake

Past use in juv. Salmonids (3 of 3)• Best suited for:

– freshwater, low conductivity (<~ 600 μS)– Turbulent waters, ice, mobile & fixed tracking

• By air only viable with RT

• Life cycle tracking• Tag failure rates• CIs• Mortality due to tagging• Number of fish released• Tags “recovered”

Similar to acoustic telemetry in suitable environments

Information from RT• Most Corps management decisions about

dam operations leading to surface passage were based at least partly on data from RT (prior to ~ 2010)– Approach, passage, egress– Route-specific passage and survival – 4 Snake R. dams, 4 lower Columbia R. dams

• 3D with acoustic telemetry used to refine

Equipment Costs

• Transmitters– $150-315 (typical)

• Receivers– $<1,000-2,500 (basic mobile tracking)– $2000-11,000 (data logging, multiple inputs,…)

• Other equipment– Antennas, cable, line amplifiers, etc.

• Generally trivial compared to receivers– Survival deployment at CR dam may cost $10,000

» plus labor

Example 1: Little Goose Dam 2009

• Purpose: passage and survival with spillway weir

• Total cost ~ 3 M (from tags to reporting)– 7,288 tags

• Method: Multi-state mark-recapture model– route-specific survival model

• Skalski et al. 2002

Little Goose Dam, 2009• Metrics

– Survival• Pool, forebay, route-specific, dam, concrete• Single release, paired release

– Passage• Route-specific probabilities• Issue with entrainment in tailrace

– Travel times• Release to forebay, there to dam,

dam through tailrace

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo

Data from GPS-equipped drogues

Forebay Array

Test Release Site 21 km upstream

~ 500 m

Egress array ~ 1.2 km from dam

~ 2 km

Control Release Site

TSW

3 arrays downstream

xx

x

x

x x

x

Yagi aerial antenna

Trolley pipe for dipole underwater antennas

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1224/

Comparison with other methods

N = 1,569

N = 3,447

Weiland et al., 2009Counihan et al., 2006Beeman et al., 2006

Example 2: Cougar Dam

• Purpose– Route-specific passage and survival

• Total cost $130,000– 300 tags

• Method– Passage and survival based on multi-state

mark-recapture model• Skalski et al. (2002) again

Corps of Engineers graphic and photo

Sites near the dam

Sites farther downstream

Oregon

McKenzie Hatchery

Leaburg HatcherySouth Fork

McKenzie River Cougar Dam

Cougar Reservoir

N

BridgeLeaburg Dam

PITRadio

Detection site along the McKenzie River

Current RT in juv. salmonids in CRB

• Primarily at Willamette Basin dams– Fall Creek in fall 2012 (NOAA)– Cougar in fall 2011 and 2012 (USGS)

• Dam passage and survival probabilities• Study conditions advantage radio over acoustic

– turbulent tailrace areas, shallow waters, etc.

Why less RT now?

• There are simply more choices today– Worldwide, PIT and acoustic telemetry are

more developed today than before• RT use in aquatic environment began in 1968

• Corps change to AT for BiOp check in– Vast majority of regional telemetry use is

funded by COE

From Cooke and Thorstad. 2012. Is radio telemetry getting washed downstream? The changing role of radio telemetry studies of freshwater fish relative to other tagging and telemetry technology. Pages 349-369 in McKenzie and 5 other editors. Advances in fish tagging and marking technology. AFS, Symposium 76, Bethesda, Maryland.

Evidence of a reduction in RT use worldwide (more tools now)

Summary• Radio telemetry is a useful tool

– Has been the basis of many management decisions re: dam operations and downstream passage development

– Historically used due to advantages over other methods• More method choices now = less RT use

– Regional and world wide• Still used when advantageous

– The same reasoning for its use all along

Adams, N. S., J. W. Beeman, and J. H. Eiler, editors. 2012. Telemetry techniques: A user guide for fisheries research. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland.