Acoustic applications in fisheries science: the ICES contribution

Fernandes, P. G., Gerlotto, F., Holliday, D. V., Nakken, O., and Simmonds, E. J. 2002. Acoustic applications in fisheries science: the ICES contribution. ‐ ICES Marine Science Symposia, 215: 483‐492. Sound is the most effective medium with which to perceive the marine environment, as evidenced from the evolution of echolocation in cetaceans developed over millions of years. In the 100 years since its inception, ICES has presided over an analogous development in fisheries science: fisheries acoustics. Echosounders were invented in the 1920s, and successful attempts to detect fish in the 1930s are recorded in the ICES literature. With the proliferation of acoustic instrumentation in the post-war years, "echo surveys" were carried out to map various fisheries resources. The first meeting on echosounding as an aid to fishing was organized by ICES in 1954, and the technique flourished in the 1960s. Progress was reported to ICES committees, and a training course was organized in 1969 in conjunction with FAO. An ICES International Symposium on "Hydro-Acoustics in Fisheries Research" took place in Bergen, Norway in 1973. This was one of four more successful symposia documenting a global view of fisheries acoustics through the proceedings published by ICES. It was largely as a result of the third conference that a specific group was set up to cater for the expanding contributions within the field. The ICES Working Group on Fisheries Acoustics Science and Technology (WGFAST) met for the first time in 1984 and has been active ever since, providing authoritative documentation on important topics in the field. This paper reviews the ICES contributions in the field and describes the general principles of a technique which has evolved to provide a powerful means for investigating the abundance, distribution, behaviour, and ecology of fish, plankton, and other marine organisms.