0000000000004659
AUTHOR
Juha Jurvelius
Mortality of pike-perch (Stizostedion lucioperca), brown trout (Salmo trutta) and landlocked salmon (Salmo salar m. sebago) caught as by-catch in pelagic trawling in a Finnish lake
Altogether 146 pike-perch, 49 brown trout and 19 landlocked salmon were caught in 23 exploratory trawl-hauls in lake Pyhaselka, Finland. Brown trout and salmon were caught only in surface trawling, whereas pike-perch were taken also in mid-water trawling. Most of the fish were smaller than the minimal legal size of 40 cm. To estimate their post-trawling mortality, 129 fish were kept in net cages for 1 week. Less than 15% of the pike-perch and brown trout caught by surface trawl died during 1 week caging, whereas every caged salmon died. Mid-water trawling was far more lethal to pike-perch than surface trawling. We conclude that pike-perch and brown trout can recover from surface trawling. S…
Estimating the effects of winter-fishing: mobile echosounding under ice
Abstract An echosounder with a tape recorder in a propeller-driven waterproof box (an echosounder shuttle) was used under the ice to monitor the vertical distribution and density of fish in a winter seining area of a Finnish lake in April 1997. The surveyed fish were at 3.5–8 m depth, and fish density was significantly lower after seining than before. The seine catch was about 10 kg ha−1, and the echosounding results showed a decrease of 7 kg ha−1 in the hauling area. There were some difficulties due to the low temperature, and minor problems with steering and leakage of the shuttle. We conclude that it is possible to make mobile echosurveys under the ice and estimate densities of wintering…
Indice de réflexion latérale du saumon Atlantique (Salmo salar), de la truite de mer (Salmo trutta), du corégone (Coregonus lavaretus) et du brochet (Esox lucius).
L'indice de reflexion acoustique laterale (TS) de 19 saumons Atlantique (Salmo salar), 16 truites de mer (Salmo trutta), 10 coregones (Coregonus lavaretus) et 7 brochets (Esox lucius) a ete mesure en utilisant un sondeur de 200 kHz, afin d'etudier la relation entre l'indice TS et la taille, le poids et la surface du poisson. Les effets de l'angle d'incidence sur l'indice TS ont aussi ete etudies. Des modeles lineaires entre TS et le logarithme de l'indice de taille du poisson ont ete ajustes et ont montre que la meilleure prevision provient de l'indice de longueur. Classiquement, l'erreur standard de l'estimation etait de 1,2 a 2,9 dB. Les resultats des mesures de TS sur des poissons de lon…
La remontée du saumon pour le frai dans le fleuve Tornionjoki, suivie au moyen d'un sonar à double faisceau horizontal.
Fixed location split-beam horizontal echosounding was used to assess the size and timing of the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) spawning run in the River Tornionjoki. Four transducers, two on each river bank, were mounted across the river at the study site 4 km upstream from the river mouth. Net weirs were used on both shores to direct the passage of fish through the acoustic beams. Hydroacoustic monitoring covered 40-50% of the river cross-sectional area. Also test fishing and yearly catch statistics of salmon were used as an indication of the size of the spawning run in the river. Altogether, 7 700, 5 300 and 4 300 salmon-sized targets (target strength, TS ≥ -29 dB) moving upstream were det…
Densité et mobilité des poissons sous la glace, sur une zone de pêche à la senne de deux lacs finlandais, par écho-intégration.
The density and movements of fish under ice were studied with single-beam mobile surveys and fixed location split-beam surveys, as well as exploratory fishing in winter-seining areas of two shallow Finnish lakes during winter 1999. Fish schooled near the bottom during the day but the schools dispersed and fish ascended at night. Single and split-beam target strength distributions corresponded fairly closely with the length distribution of seine catch samples. Estimated fish densities were greater at night than in daylight. The swimming speed of smelt (Osmerus eperlanus) was 0.18 m·s -1 in daylight and 0.36 m·s -1 at night. The corresponding figures for vendace (Coregonus albula) were 0.11-0…
Night, day, sunrise, sunset: do fish under snow and ice recognize the difference?
1. Although boreal lakes are ice-covered for several months annually, little is known about the behaviour of fish under ice. To consider the reasons for diel vertical migrations (DVM) it is important to compare periods under ice as opposed to under open water. Echosounding provides a tool for non-intrusive continuous monitoring of fish, even in winter. 2. Changes in the vertical distribution of fish through six 48-h periods were monitored using a stationary, mounted echosounder that beamed vertically either from the bottom up or from the surface down from February to April, 2003. The up-beaming and down-beaming transducers were run alternately for 24 h each over the 48-h period. Standard ec…
Occurrence of Two-Year Cyclicity, “Saw-Blade Fluctuation”, in Vendace Populations in Finland
The tendency towards two-year cyclicity is considered typical of many Fennoscandian vendace populations, especially in fluctuation of recruitment, based on time series of individual lakes. We used two robust indicators to identify and quantify two-year cycles in vendace population proxy time series at different life-stages — spawning stock biomass (SB), density of newly hatched larvae (LD) and recruitment (REC) — from 22 Finnish lakes. Then we applied Fisher’s meta-analytical test to assess the adequacy of the evidence to support the hypothesis that vendace population dynam-ics include two-year cyclicity. The results supported this hypothesis for RECbut not for SB or LD. Yet, the indicators…
Density and biomass of smelt (Osmerus eperlanus) in five Finnish lakes
Abstract Hydro-acoustic stock assessment and exploratory sampling with small mesh-sized trawls and seines have sometimes suggested that the importance of smelt (Osmerus eperlanus) in pelagic fish communities might be greater than sampling from commercial fishery and gillnetting indicate. We studied the proportion of smelt in the total fish density (fish ha−1) and biomass (kg ha−1) of pelagic fish with echo sounding and trawling in five southern boreal lakes. Fish density varied between 460 and 2000 fish ha−1 in the study lakes. Smelt and vendace (Coregonus albula) accounted for more than 95% of the exploratory trawl-catches. The total fish biomass in the study areas varied between 3 and 13 …
Echo-sounding can discriminate between fish and macroinvertebrates in fresh water
SUMMARY 1. Acoustic scattering from fish and macroinvertebrates was studied in a boreal Finnish lake at three echosounder frequencies (38, 120 and 200 kHz). Split-beam transducers with partly overlapping 7� beams were employed. Acoustic, fish and invertebrate sampling were undertaken simultaneously. Vertical gradients of temperature and oxygen concentration were measured during the exercise. 2. At all frequencies, a narrow scattering layer coincided with the thermocline. At 38 kHz, fish were detected well with practically no reverberation from invertebrates while 200 kHz detected both fish and invertebrates. 3. Minor differences in the magnitude of acoustic scattering from fish were found b…