Developing a Simulator of the Capture Process in Towed Fishing Gears by Chaotic Fish Behavior Model and Parallel Computing

A fishing simulator for towed fishing gear was investigated in order to mimic the fish behavior in capture process and investigate fishing selectivity. A fish behavior model using a psycho-hydraulic wheel activated by stimuli is established to introduce Lorenz chaos equations and a neural network system and to generate the components of realistic fish capture processes. The fish positions within the specified gear geometry are calculated from normalized intensities of the stimuli of the fishing gear components or neighboring fish and then these are related to the sensitivities and the abilities of the fish. This study is applied to four different towed gears i.e. a bottom trawl, a midwater trawl, a two-boat seine, and an anchovy boat seine and for 17 fish species as mainly caught. The Alpha cluster computer system and Fortran MPI (Message-Passing Interface) parallel programming were used for rapid calculation and mass data processing in this chaotic behavior model. The results of the simulation can be represented as animation of fish movements in relation to fishing gear using Open-GL and C graphic programming and catch data as well as selectivity analysis. The results of this simulator mimicked closely the field studies of the same gears and can therefore be used in further study of fishing gear design, predicting selectivity and indoor training systems.