Stock assessment of bottomfish through the means of robots?  Yes robots! Trawling doesn’t work due to the mortality of species.  Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is deploying  the WDFW ROV, “robot” to survey bottomfish in Puget Sound.     So what do they see?  Well to quote Mr. Lowry, “what we see is awesome!”   They see flat fish and ratfish or they see mud. Many other species of bottomfish through out the Puget Sound.

Goals:  Abundance estimates and habitat evaluation Does it work Sound wide?

In their study they were able to identify three species of Puget Sound rockfish were listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA):

Bocaccio as Endangered

Yellow Eye

Canary

WDFW determined that the use of the WDFW ROV is a non-destructive method to survey for groundfish abundance estimates and habitat evaluation Sound wide.

For more information on WDFW bottomfish studies go to:  http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/bottomfish/