Oral Presentation Australian Society for Fish Biology Conference 2018

Quantifying fine scale movement of translocated freshwater catfish (Tandanus tandanus) in an inland river with acoustic telemetry (#90)

Luke Carpenter-Bundhoo 1 , Gavin Butler 2 , Nick Bond 3 , Stuart Bunn 1 , Mark Kennard 1
  1. Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane
  2. Fisheries, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Grafton
  3. Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre, La Trobe University, Wodonga

With increasing threats to freshwater biodiversity, translocation has become an important conservation strategy for managing fish populations. Understanding how translocated individuals respond to environmental variations in a new environment is vital to managing the translocated population. Acoustic telemetry has been widely utilized in studies involving broad-scale riverine fish movementĀ and more recently, fine scale fish movement in marine environments. This technology may be a useful tool in riverine environments in quantifying fine-scale fish movements and the factors that affect them. We sourced 36 adult freshwater catfish (Tandanus tandanus) from a thriving population in a reservoir and four resident riverine fish, surgically implanted acoustic tags and released them in acoustic receiver arrays deployed in two nearby rivers. We monitored fish movement behaviour over a six-month period post-release. Fish movement behaviours did not significantly differ between the short and long-term. Differences in movement behaviour between release sites were interpreted with respect to river discharge and temperature at one site but not the other and population source had no effect on fish movement. Future work will continue to monitor long range movements of these fish to quantify similarities and differences in fine and broad scale movement responses to environmental variation.