Video Assessment of Population Size Structure and Habitat of Greenlip and Roes Abalone

Full description

The team is developing a system to enable the commercial abalone divers to undertake stock measurements using underwater video during their fishing day. The footage is then analysed by WAMRL staff.

The project takes advantage of the divers' access to vast and often remote areas of the fishery, which would be very expensive to replicate, and provides the Research Division with a means of measuring stocks from video footage.

The project involves calibration of equipment, measurement of accuracy of techniques and trialling of the efficiency of the divers skill and involvement.

The project will also

* determine the reliability and usefulness of underwater digital video in getting cost-effective, fishery-independent counts and abalone (as an alternative to traditional manual techniques);
* provide a comparison of abundance and stock structure information (between and within years) for main fishing videoed; and
* develop a time(cost) efficient computer program to extract (frame grab) and measure (within frame) abalone on videotape, and a database where images and data from video can be stored, accessed and analysed.

Industry is supporting the project by providing time, effort and resources such as boats and equipment in order to complete the field work of recording the video footage. Industry is also involved with research staff to calibrate and document efficiency of the technique.

Lineage

Maintenance and Update Frequency: unknown

Statement: Original record compiled for the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI), Project 3.8, 2008. Originally sourced from WA Fisheries website (May, 2008). Spatial extent assumed to be whole of WA.

Notes

Credit
A. Hart