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Journal article
Using mark-recapture methods to estimate fish abundance in small mountain lakes
Northwest science., Vol.71(1), pp.39-44
1997
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/1259
Abstract
The majority of lacustrine fish populations in the western USA are located far from the nearest road. Although mark-recapture techniques are widely accepted for estimating population abundance, these techniques have been broadly ignored for fisheries surveys in remote mountain lakes because of restricted access and associated logistical constraints. In this study, mark-recapture experiments were used to estimate fish population abundance in nine small ( lt 7 ha) lakes of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex. Fish in the mark sample were collected by angling, fin-clipped, and immediately released; fish were recaptured with variable mesh monofilament gill nets. A single-census Petersen estimator was used to calculate abundance in each lake, and assumptions for unbiased estimates appeared to be satisfied in most cases. Post-release mortality of angler-captured fish was low. The small size of these lakes in conjunction with the brief period of time allotted for each individual experiment apparently reduced the probability of unequal vulnerability and mortality for marked and unmarked fish. Single-census mark-recapture experiments appeared to provide reasonable estimates of population abundance in these mountain lakes. Resulting estimates furnish a substantial increase in information when compared to more ubiquitous assessments of relative abundance, but the logistical requirements are modest. We believe that this technique may be useful for survey purposes in other small, remote lakes
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Details
- Title
- Using mark-recapture methods to estimate fish abundance in small mountain lakes
- Creators
- Robert E. Gresswell (Author)William J. Liss (Author)Gregg A. Lomnicky (Author)Elisabeth K. Deimling (Author)Robert L. Hoffman (Author)Torrey Tyler (Author)
- Publication Details
- Northwest science., Vol.71(1), pp.39-44
- Academic Unit
- Northwest Science
- Publisher
- WSU Press
- Identifiers
- 99900502763301842
- Copyright
- In copyright ; openAccess ; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ ; http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccess
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article