Abstract
Habitat information on aquatic animals can be acquired easily using under
water acoustic biotelemetry. The biotelemetry has been developed recently along
with developments of micro-electronics. In this paper, an attempt to track red
tilefish using ultrasonic coded transmitter and receiver system both in the Wakasa
Bay and the Maizuru Bay was introduced. The Wakasa Bay is open to the Japan
Sea and the Maizuru Bay is the typical semi-closed waters. Tracking in the
Maizuru Bay was easier than in the Wakasa Bay, and some fish were passively
tracked more than 100 days. The result indicated that the biotelemetry study in
semi-closed water has a big advantage in order to study fish ecology. Some fish
stayed relatively longer periods in the Maizuru Bay showed circadian rhythm.
Successive tracking records can reveal the ecology of fish as well as their position.
Behavior of hatchery-reared fish was different from that of wild fish. The under
water acoustic biotelemetry may be a tool to evaluate the fish quality for release.
