Introduction: The Critical Role of Individual Identification in Fisheries Science Effective fisheries management and aquatic conservation depend fundamentally on the ability to identify, track, and monitor individual animals across time and space. Whether studying endangered salmon populations, evaluating hatchery supplementation programs, or tracking invasive species spread, researchers...

For centuries, our knowledge of the ocean and the creatures that inhabit it was limited to what we could see from the surface or catch in our nets. The lives of migratory fish—their secret movements, their hidden habitats, their daily rhythms—remained a profound mystery. We knew they migrated, but we didn't know the why, the when, or the how. This lack of information left huge gaps...