Missouri-Yellowstone Adopt-A-Fish

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How fish are followed

Base stations on floating barges will monitor fish locations
from seven spots on the Missouri River below Fort Peck.

Locating fish
So now you've got the transmitters implanted in blue suckers, shovelnose sturgeon and paddlefish and you've turned the fish loose back into the waters of the Missouri River. How are you going to figure out where they are?

Over the years, biologists have put radio transmitters on a wide array of critters in Montana -- everything from sage grouse, to elk and deer, to fish. They've used several different methods to get readings on those transmitters, too. Sometimes, it's as simple as a biologist holding up an antenna and listening for the beeps through earphones with the radio receive hanging around their neck. Other times, when there is a lot of country to cover, biologists go up in airplanes or helicopters so they can listen for beeps over a huge areas.

Solar panels will help to keep
batteries charged
on the base stations.

But for the biologists' fish project on the Lower Missouri River of Montana, the best way to keep track of their fish is with fixed base stations. Seven of them are being set up for the spring of 2002 to provide continuous monitoring of the fish -- all day, all night, even when the biologists are asleep in their beds.

These seven base stations will be placed on the Missouri River at Culbertson, Brockton, Poplar, Wolf Point, Frazer, the mouth of the Milk River, and up the Milk River. The base stations are made up of a floating barge containing a receiver coupled with an antenna and hydrophones. Solar panels mounted on the barge keep the receiver's batteries charged.

The receivers will continuously monitor and record fish movement 24 hours a day. The direction of fish movement will be learned by noting which hydrophone was passed by first. Each receiver will be linked with a cell phone, which will allow biologists to call them and download the stored location data into their computers.

Manual tracking is done
with a hand-held unit
to pinpoint fish locations.

Some manual tracking will also be done to provide more specific location data. This will be done with hand-held antennas and portable units that the biologists can carry with them. Biologists will review general location data downloaded from the telemetry base stations before heading out onto the river to locate the fish.

Because there is more than 300 river miles that these fish may use, the base stations will help cut down the biologists' search time to specific stretches of the river where fish have been located. While manual tracking, biologists will locate fish using either radio or sonic signals from the fish's transmitters, or possibly both.

Once the specific location of a fish is determined, GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates will be recorded as well as habitat variables including water depth, water temperature, turbidity (how clear or muddy the river might be), velocity (how fast the current is moving), and substrate type (what it's like on the bottom of the river in that spot).

This information will help provide biologists with an understanding on where these fish are spawning, where they go during the different seasons, and how they respond to changes in their environment.

All that's left is to see for yourself where the fish are and where they've been, based on the data that the biologists are recording. In short, it's time for you to find your fish.