Session A8: South African FISHTRAC Programme: Radio Telemetry Techniques for Real Time Manual and Remote, Fish Behavior and Environmental Variable Monitoring in Southern African Inland Aquatic Ecosystems

Abstract: Radio telemetry techniques have been used to characterise fish behavioural ecology aspects in aquatic ecosystems to contribute to the evaluation of the ecological consequences of changes in environmental variable states. The South African inland fish tracking programme (FISHTRAC) has been established to promote the development of and use of fish movement variables within water resource management in southern Africa. FISHTRAC includes an established four phase framework including: Inception phase, Planning phase, Analyses phase and Outcomes phase which if implemented correctly, as demonstrated in the FISHTRAC manual, should allow users to implement a fish behavioural study using radio telemetry techniques with minimal error. FISHTRAC promotes the use of radio telemetry tracking systems developed and tested by Wireless Wildlife (WW) in South Africa to track fish tagged with small transceivers (tags) in riverine and lake ecosystems manually and remotely in real time. The WW telemetry system uses a digital format and a single frequency. It incorporates a data management system which allows for real time remote monitoring, facilitates communications between transceivers which allows operators to switch from remote to manual modes for example and provides data management and storage capabilities. A feature of FISHTRAC includes the ability to incorporate peripheral sensory components into tags. These include depth, temperature and movement sensors (accelerometer) and storage capabilities which can be monitored manually and or remotely in real time. The approach also includes triangulation techniques to locate tagged fish remotely. The FISHTRAC system is reliable, easy to implement and capable of addressing a range of ecosystem management and conservation questions. FISHTRAC can contribute to the; awareness of the value of characterising the biology and ecology of fishes and the ecosystems they live in, conservation and management of ecosystems, and the development of telemetry monitoring techniques in South Africa