SALMOTRACK

Electronic tracking of northern anadromous fish.

Behaviour and migrations patterns in sea and fresh water:

- all life history stages of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)
- anadromous Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) and sea trout (Salmo trutta)
- escaped farm salmon
- silver eels (Anguilla anguilla)

Study areas: North-Norwegian rivers, lakes, fjords and oceanic waters (Barents Sea)
Coordinates logistic and equipment in order to maximize synergetic effects and cost efficiency of sub-projects
Largest and most complete electronic tracking project in Scandinavia on salmonides
Total cost ~22 mill NOK 2006-2012 (+)
Scientist from Norway, Canada, USA, Japan, Finland, Denmark and Sweden, incl. several Postdoc’s, PhD’s and Master students
Tracking technology: Acoustic tracking, radio tracking, data storage tags, pop-up satellite tags, PIT-tags, conventional tags, environmental data logging and modelling.

As a result of the priorities from NCFS, and additional external funding from the Norwegian Research Council, Tromsø forskninsstiftelse, the Norwegian Directorate of Nature Management and several others, the SALMOTRACK-project was initiated in 2006. This is a primary framework that coordinates most activities in northern Norway on electronic tracking of all life stages on anadromous salmonides, with special emphasis on Atlantic salmon. One of the goals of this project is to coordinate the available logistic and equipment in such a way that as many as possible of the sub-projects can utilize this in order to maximize the synergetic effects and strongly reduce the total cost of each project. This is probably the largest and most complete fish tracking project ever in Norway on salmonid fishes with a total budged so far of >20 million NOK during 2006-2012.

The projects includes mapping the migration and behaviour of all life history stages of Atlantic salmon, from juveniles to salmon smolts, postsmolts, open ocean migrations, returning salmon (fjord), ascending, spawning and overwintering salmon (river), salmon kelts (post-spawners) in river and fjord, immature fall running salmon, as well as escaped farm salmon. In addition, anadromous Arctic charr and sea trout and silver eels are tracked in fjords, rivers and lakes.

The main activity for SALMOTRACK has so far been in the Alta River and Alta Fjord, but the project also involves activities in the Rivers Neiden, Tana, Skibotn, Signaldalen, Orkla and Hardangerfjord. Since 2006, this activity has contributed to two post-doc positions, 2 PhD positions and six master and two bachelor students at the University of Tromsø. In addition, one Japanese post doc and two international PhD-students (Canada and Sweden) are directly involved in the project, as well as several other international partners from Canada (Brian Dempson and Scott McKinley), USA (Ben Lecther), Sweden (Ignacio Serrano), Denmark (Kim Aarestrup) and Finland (Jaakko Erkinaro). Other national partners in the project includes Norwegian Institute of Nature Research (NINA: Eva Thorstad, Finn Økland, Tor Næsje) and the Norwegian Institute of marine Researsch (IMR: Ove Skilbrei)

The Norwegian College of Fishery Science (NCFS) is the coordinating institution for the project, with Audun Rikardsen (associate professor) as the project leader. Other scientist at NCFS employed by SALMOTRACK are: Jan G. Davidsen (PhD), Elina Halttunen (PhD), Morten Johansen (Post Doc), Jenny Jensen (Scientific technician) and one new Post Doc (will be employed by end of 2008). Several master students are also directly involved in the project.