Under a US Fish and Wildlife Service Grant through Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's (ODFW) Wildlife Conservation program, POORT, with the help of Golden Marine Consulting and SeaVisual Consulting Inc. has completed phase I of a multi-beam survey around Redfish Rocks.
Multi-beam sonar is used to map the bathymetry of the sea floor in such a manner as to produce an image with a resolution 1 to 2 square meters. Under Phase II, signal data collected from the survey will be processed to determine the degree of bottom hardness or softness. Oregon State University scientists plan to use the information to develop maps of habitat features for the Redfish Rocks area. ODFW is another collaborator conducting Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) surveys within the area to groundtruth the image information we obtained through the multi-beam survey. Using a video camera on their ROV, ODFW biologists will be able to see the different habitat areas mapped by the multi-beam survey and interpreted by OSU. The map may be viewed and used in analysis on a graphical information system (GIS) to help us understand the relationship between fish, invertebrates, and plants and different habitat types.

Draft Image of Northern Survey Area