Trail to the beach in Canada

Last we spoke I was on my way to the Compassionate Conservation Conference in Canada. This conference was very inspirational. It was amazing to see people so involved and interested in animal welfare in conservation. The University of British Columbia was huge and surrounded by beautiful forests. All in all, Canada was awesome.

A canal flume.

Sucker holding tanks.

VIE tagging fish!

Suckers in hoop net pens.

Lost River Suckers

This past month I have been mostly working with BOR at the A canal fish evaluation station (FES). We are taking measurements on all of the suckers that come through the flume. Each shift (Mon-Thurs) we get to hold 50% of suckers that are caught, up to 25 in total per night. We hold them in tanks with closely monitored water quality. We then transport them into Upper Klamath Lake at the end of the week, so they can be reared in pens that are in natural waters. I have been taking weights, measurements, and visual implant elastomer (VIE) tagging chubs and sculpin by-catch. VIE tagging is done to see how long tag retention is and if there is any recirculation of fish through the canal. There are also control tanks of tagged and untagged chubs and sculpin so we can get a better idea of exactly how long the tags are retained. If the tags are successful they may be used for future studies.

The shifts at FES are at night, which takes a little getting used to. I work Mon-Thurs 4pm-2:30 am. I get Fridays off which is really nice. Last week I had a normal schedule and was with Nicki at the LKNWR ponds. We set minnow traps to see what fish are in the pond. We caught and VIE tagged Sacramento Perch. We were hoping to see if there were any suckers from previous studies still in the large pond. Alia and Nicki caught one the week before! Unfortunately, we didn’t have the same luck that week. We did receive the suckers for the ponds and set their hoop net pens up. These are Lost River Suckers (Deltistes luxatus) that have been reared specifically for a scientific study. They will be observed and studied in 30 and 60-day periods.

Juvenile sucker transported to pens.

Last Friday I helped Julie transport the suckers from FES to Upper Klamath Lake where we have our net pens from June. We set up floating pens to put the FES held suckers in. We had 100% survival for the week but two fish did not make it through the transportation process. I am back at FES this week. The amount of suckers caught and held this week has really declined.

Till next time,

Erica

Awesome Bee fly. Bombyliidae