This study was conducted to investigate the effects of underwater noise caused by pile driving during marine construction on fish. In this study, the three gray rockfish were released about 1 km away from the construction site of wind power generation on July 18, 2018 and traced using two acoustic telemetry techniques. The behavior of the fish was analyzed by calculating the moving distance, swimming speed and direction of the gray rockfish. In the results of the acoustic tracking using the ship, the rockfish moved about 2.11 km for about two hours at a speed of 0.28 ± 0.14 m/s (0.94 TL/s). The bottom depth of the trajectory of the rockfish was 1.0 ± 0.6 m on average. There was a significant directionality in swimming direction of the gray rockfish, and there was no significant correlation between the swimming direction and tidal current direction. Moving distance during 5 minutes (5MD) during pile driving and finishing operations between rock surface and bedrock were 0.94-0.96 times (76.0-77.0 m) and 1.81-2.73 times (146.0-219.5 m), respectively, compared with no pile driving. This study is expected to be used as a basic data of fish behavior research on underwater noise.
Yellow clay dispersion has been applied to minimize fisheries impact by the red tide Cochlodinium polykrikoides blooms in Korean coasts since 1995. The present preliminary study documents the effect of yellow clay on Korean rockfish, Sebastes schlegelii, in terms of oxygen consumption rate (OCR). The OCR in the low clay suspension (0.05 and 0.23 %, w/w) showed normal level compared to the control. In contrast, the OCR for each one of three replicates in the high clay suspension (1.16 and 5.58 %, w/w) was not returned to the previous level that clay was not treated, indicating that high clay suspension (≥1.16%, w/w) might give negative effect on Korean rockfish. Overall, this result suggests that field application of clay to control Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) may not give impact on Korean rockfish once the clay is dispersed in a low concentration (≤0.23%). In order to understand the changes of OCR in the repeated exposure to clay, it is required to do further studies on the changes of OCR when the fish is exposed to clay repeatedly after recovery in the normal seawater.