Bob I will check Fisheries 2nd tonight and reply. It has a chapter on acoustics in fisheries.

My observation is it does no harm. However I have no doubt that fish can be conditioned to avoid sonar. If , in a pond , they are caught under sonar repeatedly they will become conditioned to avoid it as a negative stimulus.


This study ison its way.

Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
Induced Aggregation of Pond-Reared Rainbow Trout (Salmo gairdneri) Through Acoustic Conditioning
ROBERT RILEY ABBOTT

Fisheries Research Institute, College of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

Abstract.—About 90% of the rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri) roaming freely in a large pond were conditioned to come to feed at the source of an underwater acoustic stimulus in about 45 trials. The stimulus was a 150-Hz, pure tone broadcasted continuously for one minute before and throughout feeding. The fish showed no tendency to discriminate between the conditioning tone and a 300-Hz tone produced in tests from the same sound source.

DOI: 10.1577/1548-8659(1972)101<35:IAOPRT>2.0.CO;2
Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 1972;101:35–43



It is clear that the fish detected an

acoustic phenomenon because of the startle

reaction on presentation of the acoustic stim-

ulus. It is also clear that some, if not all, of

the fish were conditioned to come to the

acoustic source. It may be argued that some

fish were conditioned to come to the acoustic

source, but that the rest were conditioned to

come to the feeding area when the other fish

exhibited a startle reaction. This possibility

seems unlikely; it is more likely that the be-

havior of the fast learners facilitated condi-

tioning of the rest."




Last edited by ewest; 08/19/08 09:11 AM.