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Date Posted: 02:42:51 07/11/10 Sun
Author: Don Johnson
Subject: Didson Sonar System, Bendix sonar

I attended the July 2, 2010 ADF&G meeting for announcing their total change-over to the Didson Sonar System.
Well I now know why the ADF&G was so secretive regarding the details of their planned switch-over to
the Didson Sonar System. They could barely explain it and we could barely understand it.
The ADF&G finally unveiled details of their plan to fully convert over to using only Didson sonar technology
to calculate salmon returns to the Kenai River, within the 2010 fishing season. There was a great amount
of speculation as to what this sonar switch would mean to users because the ADF&G was holding most
of the details until the July 2 meeting. Before the meeting all we could get were fragments of information
regarding how they planned to correct Didson sonar returns so they met the escapement intent of the Alaska Board of Fish.
Basically the ADF&G announced a complex plan to convert Bendix sonar escapement figures into Didson
sonar escapement figures. It appears that they plan to do this by assuming that the Bendix sockeye sonar
figures were 40% less than Didson sockeye sonar figures. This 40% difference is to be accounted for by
assuming that each Bendix fish equals 1.4 Didson fish. It may be difficult to understand precisely how
the ADF&G plans to make this conversion but they appear to be trying to do it by just multiplying
the current 650,00 - 850,000 Bendix sockeye range by 1.4. (1.4 Didson sockeyes = 1 Bendix sockeyes)
This appears to mean that the 650,00 - 850,000 Bendix range will become a 910,000 - 1,190,000 Didson range.
The ADF&G is claiming that we will need to manage for 910,000 - 1,190,000 Didson sockeyes in order to reach the Board of Fish approved 650,00 - 850,000 Bendix sockeyes. This all seems to be saying that in the end we are really allowing 910,000 - 1,190,000 sockeye to escape into the Kenai River but the ADF&G claims that we're only doing it because 650,00 - 850,000 Bendix sockeyes equals
910,000 - 1,190,000 Didson sockeyes. That may all sound like rocket science or calculating a currency exchange rate but the ADF&G says that it's simple and the same as we have been doing for the past few years. The ADF&G is claiming that everything will remain the same, they will just be clicking off 1.4 Didson sockeyes in order to reach 1 Bendix sockeye.
Also when the public asked why the ADF&G didn't announce this change last winter, they responded by claiming that it was "an error" on their part but they didn't decide to make this official switch until a couple of weeks ago. They say they were forced to make the switch when
they found out that it was no longer possible to run the Bendix sonar along side the Didson sonar, so they then made the decision to totally abandon the Bendix system and its relevant escapement numbers.
Therefore everything had to be converted into Didson numbers and that is why they scheduled
the July 2 meeting to announce that total change-over to the public.
With the dropping of the Bendix sonar system, we now have no back-up counting method to count
salmon on the Kenai River. If the Didson sonar system is found to be flawed mid-season, we will
have nothing else to fall back on to estimate a total run size. The ADF&G is therefore claiming here
that the Didson sonar system is the best system around, so we shouldn't worry about it.
When asked what their confidence level was for the Didson sonar system, the ADF&G basically
stated that they have not been able to generate a confidence rating on the system.
So the bottom line is that we are now totally dependent on the Didson sonar system.
If the system is found to be flawed, we will just have to survive it because there are now no back-ups.
The ADF&G is claiming that the public should not be concerned with this dependance on the
Didson equipment. They are claiming that it will be used to manage the sockeye run the same as the Bendix system was. End of meeting, so its a "Done-Deal" nobody needs to worry, right?

by Don Johnson
ccpwow@gic.net

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