Computer World Canada Magazine

Fish and chips: RFID helps to track salmon

BY ROSIE LOMBARDI was not to track goods passing The Bonneville Power Admin- Ore., has been using RFID since network of 400 hydropower dams through a supply chain but rather istration (BPA), a U.S. feder- 1986 to track salmon migration and waterways.

One of the first pioneering to track living beings moving ally-owned not-for-profit public patterns through the Columbia The technology is used to bring
applications of RFID technology through an ecosystem. utility headquartered in Portland, River basin’s vast and complex scientific rigor and accuracy to
the study of declining salmon

stocks in the Pacific Northwest — and to help bring some social harmony to the region.

Salmon play a major role in the economy, history and lore of the region. The BPA is at the centre of a vortex of competing interests: environmentalists, fishermen, and 13 native tribes. Geographic disputes are also in the mix — the Columbia River’s headwaters _proad woweredb_aycisc_ro. _riorsbegin in the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia and the river snakes its way south through five U.S. states, feeding a system of tributaries and lakes on its way to the Pacific Ocean.

Many groups blame the system Fog. Closed exits. Alternate routes. of hydropower dams for the loss Now, drivers can receive these and other road conditions of their salmon, claiming they via web, phone or electronic road sign. prevent the fish from making Thanks to optical networks, where voice, video and data travel together. their way through. “For ocean- Further proof that all roads lead to a converged network. going salmon to return and thrive Learn how Cisco is keeping people, cargo and business moving at we must have safe fish passages cisco.com/poweredby/ca. that will help salmon avoid being chopped, whipped or liquefied in power turbines at each dam or knocked senseless in the turbulent backwater below the dams,” is the vivid statement on the Canadian Aquatic Resources section of the American Fisheries Society’s Web site.

Some large and fishy loss numbers were bandied about by advocacy groups in the 1970s, claiming a sharp and sudden drop in salmon. No headcount was taken of the salmon passing through the river system before the dams were originally built. RFID technology was introduced to obtain some much-needed metrics to help track and tackle all these issues. “We’re more “public” than a public utility — our mission is to restore fish and wildlife in the basin, and [to that end], our profits are ploughed back into the system,” said Scott Bettin, a freshwater fisheries biologist with the BPA. “We spend US$600 million annually to recover fish in the Columbia basin, and it’s important that we figure out where our greatest losses are.” 059128

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