Methods for Detecting and Resolving Passage Issues for Small, Non-Game Fish at Road-Stream Crossings

We used a combination of techniques to monitor fish movement at road/stream crossings on the Daniel Boone National Forest, KY.  In 2010, we used mark-recapture and collected fin clips for genetic analysis to assess passage at 20 crossings; at 3 of the crossings we also marked individual fish with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and continuously monitored movement from March – October.  Mark-recapture provided relatively little useful information for assessing fish passage.  In contrast, we detected differences in fish passage among crossings using RFID tagging and genetic approaches. RFID monitoring provided detailed information on the timing and magnitude of fish movement and demonstrated less movement through difficult crossings.  Assessment of passage through barriers by analysis of creek chub genetic material is proving to be a reliable alternative to other field-based approaches to passage assessment, particularly where the management goal is to assess relative movement rates through road-crossings of varying degrees of difficulty.  Fish passage survey results show that the need for passage replacement or improvement projects far exceeds available budgets.  We developed The Crossing Assessment Decision Support System (CADSS), a custom add-in for ArcMap, to prioritize passage remediation projects among watersheds, among crossings within individual watersheds, and to find data gaps in existing datasets.