Fish from both rearing sites tended to avoid surface water and
aggregated near the bottom of the hold when introduced into the cargo
hold. At the end of loading, Dalrymple fish remained aggregated near
the bottom of the hold and only 5±5% of fish were aligned. In contrast,
80±16% of the Georgie Lake fish were aligned (P≤0.001), and occupied
more of the water column (Fig. 5a). In addition, erratic behaviour was
nearly 4-fold higher (P≤0.001) for Dalrymple fish (4.2±1.8 m−1)
compared with Georgie Lake fish (1.1±1.1 min−1; Fig. 5b). Even so,
swimming effort for fish from both sites remained similar to control
values (PN0.05; Fig. 5c). The differences described above in alignment
and erratic behaviour between groups remained throughout the
voyage (Fig. 5), but none of the behavioural parameters varied during
the voyage within a fish group when compared with their behaviours
at t=0 (at completion of loading).