Following on from our presentation at WAS 2023 (Kadri & Kvam 2023) we will describe advances in the WelfareShield fish welfare monitoring system, showcas ing a newly developed platform and examples from its deployment on fish farms. This welfare platform a ggregates data from hydroacoustics , environmental sensors and the farm’s feeding systems .
Welfare indicators are constructed from each of these sources and combined into an overall welfare score , to give farmers an early warning system for changes in welfare status at a cage level (see Fig 1a) .
Using hydroacoustic measurements of the whole population we apply advanced pattern recognition and artificial intelligence algorithms to extract behavioural markers ( see Fig 1b):
These behavioural markers are statistically calibrated over a large dataset to establish expected levels. T he platform also incorporates environmental parameters such as temperature and oxygen, as well as f eeding system data which is used to detect anomalies in appetite levels.
Kadri, S & Kvam, J. (2023) Monitoring whole population welfare status in cages using hydroacoustics . World Aquaculture 2023 “Supporting Strength in Aquaculture”, May 29-June 1 Darwin, Australia. p. 146 https://wasblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/meeting-abstracts/WA2023AbstractBook.pdf