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The Sea Scallop Recruitment Group
Jonathan Howland (Senior Engineer, WHOI; jhowland@whoi.edu) Abstract We propose to develop and test a non-invasive, real time imaging system for 1) Assessing juvenile and adult sea scallop abundance and size distribution and, 2) Characterizing habitat and resources shared between scallops and other ground fish. The prototype instrument, essentially a camera sled, will be towed from commercial scallop vessels and be flown within a few meters of the bottom. A high resolution (~1 mega-pixel) imaging camera synchronized with a strobe will be triggered by a Acoustic Doppler Speed sensor up to 10 times per second, but at a rate to allow contiguous images of the bottom at a tow speed up to 6 kts. The images will be sent directly to the surface on a fiber optic tow cable where a high- speed frame grabber and associated software will capture the images and analyze them for the presence of scallops. Scallop size and abundance will be recorded and displayed, along with sampling statistics, as the vessel steams in a defined grid pattern. We envision that the real time data will be used in an adaptive sampling scheme for routine scallop surveys and closed area rotational management. |