This week is going to be our last week of research out on the water. Actually though, wednesday will be our last day because we need thursday to prepare for our open house on friday. The open house is when our sponsors come to see what the kids are up to and such.
last week went pretty well and we caught a ton of fish up in namayo like I mentioned earlier. We have no moved back down into dorothy to finish up gill netting and get some substrate samples. Today started out with some surprise rain and thunder so we were delayed until about 10 or so. We made pretty good time out to our project sites, but not before I saw the world's largest dock spider. And yeah, I know i'm terrified of spiders and you might think i'm exagerrating, but seriously, this is the largest spider I have ever seen in manitoba. It looked like a baby tarantula and I was terrified. haha.
Anyways, the weather cleared up and we had a nice sunny morning and got all our nets pulled and fish sampled and then returned to our supervisors cabin, as we usually do, to re-tub nets and do somemore data entry. We were just done lunch and our nets and had moved into the outdoor gazebo when it started to rain for a bit yet again. It wasn't bad at all though as we just sat comfortably in the gazebo and watched it rain while still getting our data entry done.
I will be sad once our research is over but I suppose on the bright side, I won't have to go through so much sunscreen anymore.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Rain, pain and more assorted goodtimes.
Alright, so I tried to have a catchy post title..it's more difficult than you think. Anyway, last wednesday night I met my students and explained the project and such to them. Thursday and friday we were out on the water getting them used to how things go and collecting our first data. We were out in dorothy lake where the sturgeon seem to be almost chubby looking but we don't catch very many. We aren't exactly sure why there aren't very many and why they're so chubby looking but I guess that is what the projectis trying to figure out. We continued netting the same way on monday and tuesday and also took some substrate samples. We get these by dropping an eckman or a ponar(not sure about spelling) down to the bottom and they have different mechanisms but either way they snap shut and grab a sample of the bottom, we pull it back up, pour it into a bin, mix it up a bit, record what the substrate materials is..so like sand, gravel, clay, silt etc and then we pour it through a screen and collect any of the bugs that were in the sample. Unfortuneately on monday it was raining and cold and windy so it was kind of unpleasant throughout the day. Tuesday was slightly better because everyone dressed warmer for the weather but it still rained and was a little windy.
Today we moved further upstream where it was known that there are more sturgeon. The sturgeon in this area are generally smaller lengthwise but are also much much thinner looking than the sturgeon we caught in dorothy. Again, it isn't known why so many fish stay further upstream and are so much thinner but we're trying to figure it out. After catching less than ten sturgeon per day mixed in with many by catch species it is very different netting where we were today. There were so many sturgeon and almost no other species of fish at all. I think our final count from all 3 nets at the end of the day was upwards of 150. But, let me just mention that this area is suspected by some to be a nursery area meaning that a whole bunch of the young sturgeon in this section of the river stay there to grow up, it's not the norm for the whole length of river for there to be that many fish in one area.
So I have mentioned about the rain but not the "pain" part yet. Really, it's not that bad and i'm being a bit soft I guess but today we were short on gloves so between the 4 of us we had 5 gloves. The guys pulling in the nets both needed 2 gloves which left me 1 glove to sample fish with. For anybody who hasn't seen juvenile sturgeon, they are spiky little monsters. haha. No, but really, they have a row of what are called "scutes" down each of their sides and their back and the younger they are, the sharper they are. So by the time I had sampled around 90 fish while trying to be quick because there were so many, my hands were looking a little rough. I have little scratches and cuts all over. But oh well, I suppose I should see the brightside here and realise how neat it was to see so many sturgeon and how nice it is to see all of them.
We're continuing netting in the same area for a couple days, though we are setting less nets because we only need to sample so many fish for each area, and because we didn't catch huge numbers in other sample sites, we can finish up in this area pretty quick. I think they were just going to set 1 net this evening and we'll pull that tomorrow but then just do a bunch of substrate samplses. But yes, all is well and I continue to hope for good weather.
Today we moved further upstream where it was known that there are more sturgeon. The sturgeon in this area are generally smaller lengthwise but are also much much thinner looking than the sturgeon we caught in dorothy. Again, it isn't known why so many fish stay further upstream and are so much thinner but we're trying to figure it out. After catching less than ten sturgeon per day mixed in with many by catch species it is very different netting where we were today. There were so many sturgeon and almost no other species of fish at all. I think our final count from all 3 nets at the end of the day was upwards of 150. But, let me just mention that this area is suspected by some to be a nursery area meaning that a whole bunch of the young sturgeon in this section of the river stay there to grow up, it's not the norm for the whole length of river for there to be that many fish in one area.
So I have mentioned about the rain but not the "pain" part yet. Really, it's not that bad and i'm being a bit soft I guess but today we were short on gloves so between the 4 of us we had 5 gloves. The guys pulling in the nets both needed 2 gloves which left me 1 glove to sample fish with. For anybody who hasn't seen juvenile sturgeon, they are spiky little monsters. haha. No, but really, they have a row of what are called "scutes" down each of their sides and their back and the younger they are, the sharper they are. So by the time I had sampled around 90 fish while trying to be quick because there were so many, my hands were looking a little rough. I have little scratches and cuts all over. But oh well, I suppose I should see the brightside here and realise how neat it was to see so many sturgeon and how nice it is to see all of them.
We're continuing netting in the same area for a couple days, though we are setting less nets because we only need to sample so many fish for each area, and because we didn't catch huge numbers in other sample sites, we can finish up in this area pretty quick. I think they were just going to set 1 net this evening and we'll pull that tomorrow but then just do a bunch of substrate samplses. But yes, all is well and I continue to hope for good weather.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
July 2
Well, Happy belated Canada day everybody. I realise I haven't blogged anything in almost 3 weeks now but it's been pretty busy and alot of the same stuff that I have described before. For the last 2 weeks of june I was doing the same stuff with the adult sturgeon, catching them and testing stomach contents. It was really nice weather for most of our time out there and we got alot of sun being on the river every day.
On the 25thand 26th of june there were some people from our crew that were away so there was some people shifting so I helped with a project on larval sturgeon. They were very very little and kind of looked like little tadpoles more than little fish due to their weird triangular heads. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures because that may have stressed the fish. The project itself was all about their stress levels and how certain elements of the way they were raised effects their stress levels later in life. Working with the very small sturgeon was very neat they were all a little more than half an inch long and very quick when they want to get somewhere. For this project I was working at the ATCO trailer again which is where my project was 3 years ago when I attended the DRSA as a student. It brought back the memories. haha.
There was quite a bit of wildlife around the trailer and during our breaks we saw deer, a fox, plenty of birds and there is also a pair of groundhogs that live in the area and you would see them pretty much daily. They kind of reminded me of my fat cat and I think I have come to the conclusion that my cat isn't fat, she's just half groundhog.
Anyway, back to what i'm up to this week. I haven't been doing too much this week but tonight is a bbq at the place the students are staying. They are just arriving today and then this evening the bbq is kind of a time for us tutors to meet them and get to know them a little bit. Then thursday and friday are kind of our orientation days with them and i'm sure by friday we will be well into collecting data for their project. So yes, that is what I have been up to, perhaps I will try and blog something again in less than 3 weeks. haha.
On the 25thand 26th of june there were some people from our crew that were away so there was some people shifting so I helped with a project on larval sturgeon. They were very very little and kind of looked like little tadpoles more than little fish due to their weird triangular heads. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures because that may have stressed the fish. The project itself was all about their stress levels and how certain elements of the way they were raised effects their stress levels later in life. Working with the very small sturgeon was very neat they were all a little more than half an inch long and very quick when they want to get somewhere. For this project I was working at the ATCO trailer again which is where my project was 3 years ago when I attended the DRSA as a student. It brought back the memories. haha.
There was quite a bit of wildlife around the trailer and during our breaks we saw deer, a fox, plenty of birds and there is also a pair of groundhogs that live in the area and you would see them pretty much daily. They kind of reminded me of my fat cat and I think I have come to the conclusion that my cat isn't fat, she's just half groundhog.
Anyway, back to what i'm up to this week. I haven't been doing too much this week but tonight is a bbq at the place the students are staying. They are just arriving today and then this evening the bbq is kind of a time for us tutors to meet them and get to know them a little bit. Then thursday and friday are kind of our orientation days with them and i'm sure by friday we will be well into collecting data for their project. So yes, that is what I have been up to, perhaps I will try and blog something again in less than 3 weeks. haha.
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