Chena River Chinook Salmon Study

Underwater video is going to play a huge role in Megan’s and my projects. Last fall we went out and tested the first and simplest of several video cameras we’ll be using, an Aqua-Vu DVR made for ice fishing, which I’ll be setting up with auxiliary batteries to do lengthy surveillance of juvenile Chinook schools. We found some salmon in a very large, dense logjam and shot these videos:

This year we’ll be using higher-quality cameras in stereoscopic setups to do 3D analysis of fish lengths and positions, utilizing and advancing the methods described in these two papers:

Hughes, N. F., Hayes, J. W., Shearer, K. A., & Young, R. G. (2003). Testing a model of drift-feeding using three-dimensional videography of wild brown trout, Salmo trutta, in a New Zealand river. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, 60(12), 1462-1476.

Hughes, N. F. & Kelly, L. H. (1996). New techniques for 3-D video tracking of fish swimming movements in still or flowing water. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, 53(11), 2473-2483.