A pilot project using acoustic telemetry was designed and deployed in the Skeena and Bulkley River system in summer 2008 by Kintama Research, with the assistance of Ministry of Environment staff and local river guides. This project was intended to test the technical feasibility of using acoustic technology in the free-flowing Skeena River to answer several important questions about the survival and migratory behaviour of returning adult steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss). We deployed twelve acoustic receivers in the river 19-21 August 2008, and we subsequently tagged and released 84 returning wild steelhead from two collection sites in early September: (a) the Tyee sockeye test fishery near the Skeena River mouth and (b) a site located 300 m below the Moricetown Falls in the Bulkley River canyon. … Our results demonstrate that it is feasible to use acoustic telemetry with high detection efficiencies to measure survival post release of returning Skeena River steelhead.

–Excerpt from the report’s Executive Summary