Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy...

So now that I am living 85% of the marine biology dream, it's high time I shared a little more insight with all of you. Particularly because this blog is supposed to help aspiring marine biologists, I should give you more details about what the job actually entails.

My internship is made up of 3 parts: 49% Photo-ID, 49% Dolphin surveys and 2% Fishing surveys. By the time I got here, they had done most of the fishing, so I only got to help out on four days of fishing.

But what a four days it was.

The short story: We collect fish and measure them so we can get an idea of the composition in the bay and how well they are doing (based on size). We take more measurements and weigh the fish species that dolphins like to eat so that we can figure out the nutritional value and whether dolphins think they are yummy.

Now for the fun story:

We use a technique called purse seine netting to catch the fish. Basically the net is really big and has a heavy string at the bottom. We throw the net overboard and drive in a circle so the net goes in a circle.

The net all folded up, ready to be thrown over

The corks of the net, in a large circle

Once the net is all set out, you take the ends of the heavy rope (the "purse line") and have hydrolics pull them closed. Like tightening the purse strings... everyone get it? Now the net starts to look like a bowl (if you could see underwater). You pull and pull and pull until the purse line is as small as you can get, then you start to bring all the excess net back on board, again using the hydrolics.

We also need information about the habitat. General appearance, depth, salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and the conditions that we are sampling in (from calm and pretty to tropical storm, basically).

This is where the fish come in. To be the best fisher you can, you select the size of hole you want your net to be based on the size of fish you want to catch. Not too big that fish you want will swim through, but not too small so as to catch small fish you don't want. Generally this works really well, but you will get fat fish that get stuck in the net holes, or stupid fish that start to swim through, then want to back up and get their gills caught in the net (what we call "getting gilled"). So as the excess is getting pulled back up, you want to watch it come through in order to find any fish caught in the net (and there will be fish caught in the net).

Because you need to count every fish. Every. Single. Damn. Fish.

And you need to be fast. Because we like fish, and we don't want them to die. So the faster you get them out and get them measured, the faster they back in the water. And the faster you can move on to the next set and the faster you are finished.

So yeah... you need to be fast.

And fearless. Fish bite. And some have really pointy spines (that's the scientific terminology). Some even have sharp skin. A couple are poisonous. But they all need to be handled and counted. As an intern, I could get away with a little bit of wariness and shirking away from some of the fish, but when I grow up you have to suck it up and get 'er done.

Insider advice: only wimps use gloves. If you don't leave the boat with hands totally scraped up, you did something wrong.

We took two types of measurements because we were doing two types of projects. The first measurement was on every fish, and that was the fleshy length. That is the length from the end of the fish's nose to the end of it's skin/body (where the body turns into tail fin).

On the dolphin prey species, we took: total length (nose to very end of tail), fork length (nose to the inside of the fork), fleshy length (see above) and standard length (nose to the end of the spine). We also weighed it to the nearest 2 grams.

Once all the fish had been measured and thrown overboard (dead or hopefully alive), clean up, set the net straight and repeat.

And as bonus data, we collect samples of water to look for red tide ( some kind of algae/small organism that turns the water red. It's pretty harmless to humans unless you're allergic).

Sounds fun, hey? While it is a lot of work, it really is also a lot of fun ( if you're into that sort of thing). And I discovered that the Sarasota Bay really does have a lot of totally awesome creatures living in it. Ones that I have studied and seen dead and pickled, but here I saw them alive and kicking!

Animals like...

Sharks!

Rays!

Horseshoe crabs!

Octopus!

Burfish! (like pufferfish!)

Halfbeaks!

As well as a sea turtle or two (one was swimming in our net and a volunteer had to go out and save it).

So the moral of the story: The fishing was hard, you had to be fast, my hands look like ground beef, you smell like crap, you sweat so much and I have not had that much fun in a very, very long time.

Speak Loud.