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An Evaluation of Visible Implant Elastomer for Marking Age‐0 Brown Trout
Author(s) -
Olsen Esben Moland,
Vøllestad Leif Asbjørn
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
north american journal of fisheries management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1548-8675
pISSN - 0275-5947
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8675(2001)021<0967:aeovie>2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - salmo , brown trout , fish measurement , fish <actinopterygii> , trout , biology , fishery , zoology , sampling (signal processing) , physics , detector , optics
Injection of visible implant elastomer (VIE) was evaluated as a way to provide age‐0 brown trout Salmo trutta with externally visible internal marks. We first tested this fluorescent elastomer material in a laboratory experiment using a single color and body position to batch‐mark the fish (28.9–44.1 mm fork length). The experiment lasted for 77 d, with no mortality or tag loss and no significant ( P = 0.44) effect on fish growth. Similar marks were then used to individually tag age‐0 brown trout (26–70 mm) in small streams in the wild using four different colors and several body positions. The immediate mortality associated with the marking procedure was low (0.5%), and visual identification of VIE marks on recaptured individuals (169 out of 699 released; 39–83 d between release and recapture) was not difficult. We found no significant differences in mean fork length between tagged and untagged individuals captured on the same date at given sampling locations. This suggests that capture and marking had no major negative effect on fish growth (assuming that tagged and untagged individuals experienced similar conditions between sampling occasions and otherwise had comparable histories).