Estimating the target strength of live, free-swimming chokka squid Loligo reynaudii at 38 and 120 kHz

Abstract

Estimates of the target strength (TS) of the loliginid squid Loligo reynaudii at 120 kHz were made from ex situ experiments on 38 caged, but free-swimming animals, and at 38 and 120 kHz from 17 in situ experiments on spawning aggregations in the wild conducted from a research vessel and from small boats. The cage experiments suggested that the backscattering cross section is proportional to mantle length (ML), which would not be expected from simple considerations of ML in relation to wavelength. A similar relationship was found during the in situ experiments conducted from the research vessel. The TS estimates from the research vessel agreed well with those from the cage experiments, for both of the two methods used to extract squid TS distributions from the overall TS distributions, but were some 2-3 dB lower than those from the small boats. This suggests that in situ estimates are affected by the vessel and/or the way in which squid react to it. It is concluded that ex situ experiments on L. reynaudii TS are of most value as a complement to in situ experiments, which should be made concurrently while surveying, using systems capable of having higher volume resolution than in the current experiments, to maximize the applicability of the estimates to the survey data. © 2010 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved.