Assessment of movements of resident stream brown trout, Salmo trutta L., among contiguous sections of stream

Abstract – The present authors studied the movements of resident stream brown trout, Salmo trutta L., in Valley Creek, Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA, using mark-recapture techniques as well as radio telemetry. The novel characteristic of this study is that the entire stream was sampled during recapture, thus minimizing the possibility of bias during this portion of the analysis. The authors tagged 627 trout between June and September, 1995, and made 94.6% of recaptures in December, 1995, and 98.5% of recaptures in March, 1996, within 800 m of the initial tagging sites. They also implanted six trout with radio transmitters and made 94.6% of contacts within 800 m of the initial implantation sites. The data, which were pooled from mark-recapture and radio telemetry studies, show that 95.5% of all recaptures and contacts were within 800 m of initial tagging sites. These results, derived from complete stream sampling, support previous studies indicating that a high percentage of resident stream salmonids remain in the same area of stream throughout the year.