Scientists in New York State are putting battery-powered implants, hydrophones, GPS and sonic waves to use in the Hudson River, where they are tracking and studying several species of fish.
About 45 fish are swimming in Hudson River’s salty estuary emitting sonic waves, allowing New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation to track them with hydrophones and GPS.
The state’s Hudson River Estuary research program is one of dozens across the nation in which environmentalists and scientists are using RFID tags, sonic transmitters, antennae, GPS, video, phones and other technology to study underwater ecosystems.
In the Hudson, scientists are studying sturgeon’s movements by going out on the river in search of sonic signals. They use mobile monitoring units and stationary arrays to pick up signals from the implanted fish and plot their movements with GPS. The native species are monitored until they leave the estuary for the Atlantic, or the batteries in the sturgeons’ tags run out (537 days).
The state has used technology, including GPS, for more than 10 years to study vegetation, topography and ecology in the estuary. In addition to the current fish monitoring program, New York is using GPS, optical and sonar data gathering and data integration to study ship movements and create a map of the riverbed along the river’s 153-mile estuary.
The Pew Institute for National Oceanographic Science recently released a report saying that the world’s sturgeon supply was threatened, and New York just completed its first year of monitoring them.
Courtesy of RFID Insights.
October 12th, 2005 | General Science