"Fisheries managers and researchers have many technologies to choose from when they study fish migration and survival," said lead author Geoff McMichael of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

"JSATS was specifically designed to understand juvenile salmon passage and survival through the swift currents and noisy hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River," McMichael continued. "But other systems might work better in different circumstances. This paper demonstrates JSATS' strengths and helps researchers weigh the pros and cons of the different fish tracking methods available today."

Scientists at PNNL and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Portland District co-authored the paper. PNNL and NOAA Fisheries began developing JSATS for the Corps in 2001.