Counting and measuring fish with baited video techniques - an overview

The use of remote, baited ‘video fishing’ techniques offer standardised, non-extractive methodologies for estimating relative abundance of a range of marine vertebrates and invertebrates, with the option of very precise and accurate length and biomass estimates when stereo-camera pairs are used. They have also been used to monitor the fate of bycatch discards and other food falls, and to help measure metabolic rates, swimming speed and foraging behaviour of abyssal scavengers. This paper gives a brief overview of the general methodology, benefits and limitations of the technique. We conclude that baited video techniques afford the only sampling option for some situations, but more often can complement other traditional methods to enhance the scope and capability of monitoring and stock assessment programs. Major advances will be made when models are developed for shallow waters to estimate absolute density of target species by accounting for the sampling area in the bait plume. Cheaper, better and smaller camera, lighting and deployment systems are inevitable, but focussed research and development is needed to overcome bottlenecks in data acquisition from tapes through incremental automation.

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