Acoustic Telemetry Evaluations of Non-Physical Fish Barriers and Fish Protection Facilities in the Central Valley of California

I participated in teams that evaluated two non-physical barriers and one fish protection facility using acoustic telemetry. When I wrote this abstract, results were available for only one of these non-physical barriers: a Bio-Acoustic Fish Fence (BAFF) in the San Joaquin River.  At the San Joaquin River BAFF in 2009, a highly statistically significant proportion of Chinook salmon was deterred by the barrier; the deterrence rate was 81.4%. At this same location in 2010, deterrence efficiency was not statistically significant; the deterrence rate was 23.0%. In this presentation, I will discuss why this difference occurred and the results of 2011 acoustic telemetry evaluations at the the San Joaquin River BAFF, the US Government’s fish protection facility in Tracy, CA that uses louvers to salvage fish, and a BAFF deployed in the Sacramento River to deter Chinook salmon smolts from entering Georgiana Slough.