Acoustic Tag Development for Juvenile Salmon, Sturgeon, Eel and Lamprey

In recent years acoustic telemetry has been a primary method for studying salmon passage. We developed the first acoustic transmitter that can be implanted by injection instead of surgery.  It is 15.00 mm in length and 3.35 mm in diameter, and weighs 216 mg in air.  The tag can last > 100 days at a pulse rate interval of 3 s.  Little is known about the behavior and habitat use of small juvenile sturgeon. Their small size has precluded intensive research using telemetry techniques because the transmitters commercially available are too large, have too short of a lifetime, or have an inadequate ping rate.  We developed a new acoustic transmitter for juvenile sturgeon.  The sturgeon tag weighs approximately 700 mg in air, is 5.0 mm in diameter and 24.2 mm in length.  Its source level can be up to 163 dB re 1 µPa compared to the 156 dB for the injectable tag. It has a tag life of 365 days at a source level of 161 dB and a PRI of 15 s. We just started a new project to develop an acoustic microtransmitter that can be used to study the behavior and survival of juvenile eel and lamprey.