Interns Log for Week Ending July 23

Type: Nontidal
Region: Central
Location: Western and Central Maryland

It was quite the week, full of electroshocking! On Wednesday we (Ryan Gary and I) headed out to a site on the Patapsco River to participate with the Maryland Biological Stream Survey Team (MBSS), they catalog all living organisms with Maryland streams, among other task). When we arrived at the site, we noticed the water was fairly turbid. We found out that the site we were at had gotten rain the night before. Of course it was the only place that it had stormed. So we packed up and headed to a different site upstream, however it was the same circumstances. There was too much sediment in the water, so it would be rather difficult to see the fish as we shocked the water. We ended up calling it a day and hoped that in 24 hours the water would be less turbid. Turns out they were right! Thursday we headed to the site early in the morning, unloaded all of the gear, and suited up in our waders. We did two passes of 75m in length. We had about 10 anodes in the water. Throughout the two passes at that site we got an amense amount of fish, and eels. To the MBSS people, it was just another day in the field, but I've got to say I was very impressed to see how much we actually shocked up. After we got through the second pass for that site, we packed up and headed to Patapsco State Park, another one of MBSS many sites. This site was little more calmer, in the sense that we didn't have any high flow riffles to trek through. Since it was a State Park, we had our share of spectators. It was a fantastic day, and I really learned a lot. Just observing while they sorted through all of the fish and collected their data really helped me learn species of fish, crayfish, and eels. I would have to say it was a very successful day, and a fun one on that note!

The below pictures are from our work surveying the Savage River earlier in the week, we worked with the Western Region Inland Fisheries Manager, Al Klotz, and many other biologist from the Fisheries Service.