The last few weeks have been busy. To recap, we’re building floating u-shaped docks from which we are going to suspend nets that form a sort of cage. We’re then going to catch some larval shortnose suckers and place them in the cages where they’ll live (hopefully) all season, then at the end of the season we’ll tag and release them.
Weir used by USGS to monitor sucker populations.
We’re still in the planning stages at this point, and are working hard to avoid missing our window to collect fish. Despite a lot of delayed orders at the hardware stores, we have our docks and cages mostly ready to be stocked with fish. We’re going to start setting plankton tow nets during the nights in order to collect larvae to put in the cages, and then the, “official” propagation work can begin.
Nature Conservancy site.
We still have some work to do with the docks, but it’s good to have them in the water and basically set up after dealing with them for the past few weeks. We’re using JetDocks floating dock systems and they are just not nearly as easy to assemble and work with as their YouTube videos would have you believe! Anyways, at this point we’re just working on setting up some aerators (for when the dissolved oxygen gets too low in the cages), and DataSondes (to tell us when the DO is too low, as well as to monitor ammonium levels, pH, conductivity, and water temperature). We also need to put some bird netting across the pens to keep our feathered friends (of which there are many) from helping themselves to our fish.
Planting day with the restoration team.
I’ve also been able to help out on a planting day with some restoration folks from our office. The fish morphometrics project is also progressing. We’ve also been getting a lot of help, both in terms of people-power and equipment, from the other agencies in the area, especially USGS and BOR. It’s really cool to see how everyone helps each other out and works together on these projects. So with some help and hard work, hopefully I’ll have some fish to talk about next time!