Traverse a River Like a Fish in PNNL’s new “Fish Trails” Game

Ever wondered what it’s like to be a fish swimming in rivers and streams to and from the ocean? Now anyone can get a fish-eye view of the experience with a new mobile app developed by the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). 

In the game, called Fish Trails, players navigate as fish through the waterways of the mythical “Fishcadia,” encountering common obstacles such as predators and hydropower infrastructure. At every obstacle, players make choices, like deciding whether to rest or find food or choosing whether to cross over or through a hydropower dam. 

These obstacles mimic what real fish might experience as they migrate to and from the ocean, said Brian Bellgraph, a fisheries biologist at PNNL who consulted on the science of the game. The game reflects what PNNL researchers have learned about fish migration.

Players start by choosing a type of fish to play as: young salmon, char, or adult sturgeon. There’s also Pacific Lamprey, but that fish is “unlocked” only by winning the game.

“We wanted to focus on a variety of different species that have different characteristics,” said Stephanie Larson, a PNNL earth scientist and additional Fish Trails consultant. “Migration for char looks different from a salmon’s migration.”

Char tend to make annual trips from freshwater to the ocean and back, while salmon make one big migration during their lifetime, she continued. And sturgeon migrations are less predictable, moving between freshwater and estuarine, bay and coastal environments throughout their lifetimes.

Playing like a fish

Once a player has selected a fish, they select different skills such as charisma, swimming speed, life experience, or being good at navigation or camouflage. 

“We wanted to emphasize that fish have different skills or personality traits just like humans do,” Larson said. “Some fish are bold, some fish are timid, some are better at hiding or finding food than others.”

When the fish species and skills are locked in, the fish heads out on a quest to reach its final destination. During that journey, the fish encounters multiple experiences that put the player to the test to find the safest route.

Hydroelectric dams are common barriers for fish in real life, Bellgraph said. PNNL researchers work to evaluate and improve fish passage systems used to help fish navigate successfully. Using acoustic tags that are implanted into migrating fish, researchers can track a single fish’s journey through dams to find out which route is taken and whether the fish survives the passage. This information guides operations to make dams safer for fish. Research in the Pacific Northwest has shown that the vast majority of fish successfully pass through dams. 

For fish swimming upstream, some dams have concrete fish ladders that mimic rocky waterfalls that fish climb in the wild or elevator-like structures to lift fish over the dam. For downstream swimmers, bypass systems that operate as a series of tubes guide fish around the dams. Some dams don’t have fish passage options at all—the fish are collected from the river (either by workers or machines) before manual transportation to the other side of the dam. 

At every dam encounter in the game, players choose from different passage routes.

The origins of Fish Trails

When hydropower research and communications staff gathered to brainstorm new ways to educate the public about DOE’s hydropower work, someone suggested “The Oregon Trail, but for fish,” said Shannon Bates, an advisor at PNNL. The Oregon Trail was released as a computer game in 1990; it’s been played by school children all over the United States.

“So many of us grew up playing the Oregon Trail, myself included, and the idea just immediately resonated,” Bates added.

With funding from DOE’s Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office, Fish Trails was born.

It’s also fitting that the game was developed in Richland, Washington, where fourth and fifth graders across the eastern side of the state raise juvenile salmon every year. Every spring, the Benton County Conservation District hosts the annual Salmon Summit, where the students learn about fish biology and hydropower, see their juvenile salmon get tagged by Larson and other PNNL researchers, and release them into the Columbia River.

“We want people to have fun playing the game, but also to learn something new about the many fish that live in these waterways,” Bellgraph said.