Fish Movement at Breakwaters

Little Bay and the surrounding seascape off the coast of Bayou la Batre, Alabama, offer a unique opportunity to study sportfish movements around Living Shorelines. Within the home range of individual fish are three different coastal restoration projects that employ five different breakwater structure types, including man-made loose-shell oyster reefs, concrete wave attenuation pyramids (WADs) near and far from shore, mini-WADs, and riprap breakwaters. We are using fine-scale acoustic telemetry, in which arrays of closely spaced acoustic receivers triangulate the exact coordinates of tagged fish positions, within a broader tracking array to monitor sportfish use of breakwater structures, the habitats those structures protect, and the broader seascape. Currently, we are monitoring red drum, sheepshead, speckled trout, and southern flounder. We will also tag sharks to determine how sportfish habitat use changes in the presence of predators. This work will help to identify living shoreline features and breakwater types that are most attractive to important sportfish in order to potentially guide the design of future shoreline protection projects that seek to maximize fish-habitat benefits.

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