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Herding and escaping responses of juvenile roundfish to square mesh window in a trawl cod end

The movements of juvenile roundfish, mainly haddock Melanogrammus aeglefinus and whiting Merlangius merlangus, reacting to a square mesh window in the cod end of a bottom trawl were observed during fishing experiments in the North Sea. Two typical behavioral responses of roundfish are described as the herding response and the escaping response, which were analyzed from video recordings by time sequences of the movement parameters. It was found that most of the actively escaping fish approached the square mesh window at right angles by swimming straight ahead with very little change in direction, while most of the herded fish approached the net at obtuse angles and retreated by sharp turning. The herding and escaping responses showed significant difference when characterized by frequency distributions of swimming speed and angular velocity, and both responses showed large and irregular variations in swimming movement parameters like the panic erratic responses. It is concluded that an escaping or herding response to the square mesh window could be decided by an interaction between the predictable parameters that describe the stimuli of net and angular changes of fish response, such as approaching angle, turning angle and angular velocity.