On March 3rd, Gunpowder RIVERKEEPER® staff and volunteers met at Jerusalem Mill for our first outing with the Fisheries crew from Maryland Department of Natural Resources to conduct anadromous fish spawn surveying.
Staff Brady Bayne, Joe Ottomano, RIVERKEEPER@ Theaux Le Gardeur, and volunteers Kevin Roeder, and Bill Temmink met with Fish Biologists Jeffrey Horne, Marek Topolski, Shannon Moorhead, and Marisa Ponte for training on the Little Gunpowder Falls before dividing up to sample the other nine survey sites.
Anadromous fish spend much of their life in the salt water, but return to freshwater streams to spawn. Fisheries has been conducting surveys of these types of fish since the 1970s, but recent low recruitment of species like yellow perch recently has spurred more research on which streams the fish use to see which streams are in need of protection or remediation to facilitate ecosystem health.
To quantify spawning fish populations, Fisheries and Gunpowder RIVERKEEPER® are conducting weekly surveys during the spawning season: March – May of ten sites in the Big Gunpowder Falls, Little Gunpowder Falls, and tributaries to the Bush River all at historic Fisheries surveying sites.
At each site, we wade into the channel and place our net in the current for exactly five minutes. After the five minutes are up, we wash all of the collected material out of the net and into our collection jar. These collection jars are sent back to DNR for dyeing and analysis. The dye binds with fats in the samples to make the eggs and fry of the spawning fish stand out from the other detritus.
After we’ve collected our sample, we also take measures of water quality using a YSI probe. With this we check the water temperature, conductivity, and dissolved Oxygen. These readings help us determine if the water quality is adequate for spawning fish. All of our data is recorded on a data sheet and delivered to Fisheries with the samples to help them analyze the fish populations of the rivers and streams.
We will be sampling on Tuesdays through the end of May, so if you’d like to spend the morning with us out on the river, be sure to sign up to volunteer here. If you’ve already signed up and want to claim a spot on a specific Tuesday, grab a free ticket here. In the case of inclement weather, such as the heavy rains that preceded March 17th’s sampling day, we will reschedule to the next day.