Cost Comparison of Marks, Tags, and Mark-with-Tag Combinations Used in Salmonid Research

Modern fishery management requires knowledge of fish survival and distribution that is best acquired by marking and subsequent recapture. To aid cost-effective analysis for marking Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. and steelhead O. mykiss, 16 marks, 6 tags, and 3 mark–tag combinations were compared for application and decoding costs per fish. Application costs (1999 US$) ranged from negligible for thermal otolith marks to $6.50/fish for a combination of an adipose fin clip, a coded wire tag, and a passive integrated transponder tag. Decoding costs ranged from negligible for fin clips to $50.00/sample for strontium marked scales.