Sven Gastauer and Kees Bakker from the Netherlands have joined this year’s blue whiting acoustic survey.
Their blog is here.
The survey will start from Galway, Ireland.
Their research is part of an internationally coordinated effort to estimate the size of the blue whiting stock west of the British Isles. The area will be surveyed on a systematic, predefined cruise track.
They write:
During the survey we continuously send out vertical sound waves through the water and collect acoustic backscatter data. We can visualise these data in a so-called ‘echogram’ – essentially a 2-dimensional slice through the water column. Once we have completed the survey of the area, we combine all the echo energy that was reflected by blue whiting and convert it into fish numbers and weight.
