In situ target strength estimates of visually verified orange roughy

Abstract

The first estimates of orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) target strength at 38 and 120 kHz with visual verification were obtained from a self-contained echosounder and video camera system affixed to a demersal trawl towed through dense aggregations of spawning orange roughy. Mean target strength estimates were obtained from 24 tracks of orange roughy containing 83 echoes. The mean target strength at 38 kHz was -52.0 dB with a 95% confidence interval of -53.3 to -50.9 dB for fish with a mean length of 33.9 cm. At 120 kHz the mean target strength was -47.9 dB (confidence interval of -48.8 to -46.4 dB). This work makes two significant advances: in situ TS measurements have been made that can be confidently attributed to orange roughy, and using a trawl to herd orange roughy past the system resolved the previously intractable problem of fish avoidance. © 2012 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.