Assessing Fish Distribution and Abundance Using Visual Tools: Recent Innovations and Advancements

Visual surveys are nonlethal and fishery independent, and technological advances have allowed survey tools such as video landers, remotely operated vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, and manned submersibles to be increasingly accessible and affordable for assessment of diverse marine and freshwater ecosystems. As a result, visual surveys are becoming more common throughout North America for management and research, yet there are common obstacles that users face when designing surveys and analyzing resulting data, especially in the context of fisheries management. Independent workshops on both coasts have developed recommendations for use of these tools (Greene et al. 2014; Undersea Imaging Workshop Proceedings, 2014), but communication of these concepts is often minimized by geographic separation among practitioners.