Physical Parameter Measurement and Theoretical Target Strength Estimation of Juvenile Cod (Gadus macrocephalus)

The contrast (fish body to medium ratio) of density and sound speed were measured to estimate acoustic scattering from small juvenile cod (Gadus macrocephalus) with the Kirchhoff-Ray Mode backscatter model. The density contrast was measured by the density-bottle method and the sound speed contrast was estimated by the time of flight method. The results revealed that the measured density contrasts of juvenile cod varied between 1.003 and 1.029 (mean = 1.014, S.D. = 0.01). On the other hand, sound speed contrasts varied between 1.039 and 1.041 (mean = 1.041, S.D. = 0.001). The relationship between averaged target strength (TS) and total length (TL) established by the model were 38kHz > = 20log(TL) . 68.8 and 120kHz > = 20log(TL) . 69.4, respectively.