Aquatracker v2.3: A Tool for the Analysis of Acoustic Telemetry Data

Acoustic telemetry has become an important tool in fisheries research.  Information from acoustic telemetry studies is used in fisheries science to define habitat ranges, migratory routes, foraging areas, home ranges, and to estimate survival of anadromous species at various points along their seaward migration.  Acoustic arrays generate massive amounts of data.  The lack of software designed for data reduction, analysis, and visualization of acoustic array data has hampered the dissemination of study results.  We developed a program, AquaTracker, to quantify, analyze, and visualize the data generated by steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Puget Sound.  The program, AquaTracker, can plot a fish path as a graph or animate the path and export it as a movie.  The program can plot a valid path around land-masses.  AquaTracker can also calculate travel rate, distance, range, path linearity, and many other track parameters.  Pre-analysis tools include identifying receivers with overlapping radii and singleton detections.  The program is a self-contained application that works well in Windows XP thru Windows 8.  The installation package includes extensive documentation and supporting software for importing data from a variety of sources.