summer REU

I have been really bad and forgot to blog all summer so I am going to give a condensed version of what I did.

Most of my summer was spent trying to capture the elusive Pacific Lamprey! My mentor was Larry Ward from the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and our first order of business was to try to capture as many adult lamprey as we could that were at the Tribe's smolt traps. We are not sure why but the adult spawning lamprey love to hang out under the tarps that are laid down in the streams for the smolt traps. We were successful with only a few getting away. This is impressive considering that we were chasing them in the stream with big nets! With some help from Mary Moser we were able to PIT tag these adults to track their movement within the system. Doing the surgical implantation of these tags out in the field was a major highlight!

Over the course of a few weeks I also got to participate in the fish rescue that was spear headed by Elwha biologist Ray Moses. The fish rescue was just that, we were rescuing all the fish we could including federally listed species from the big pools that were created due to the rerouting of the Elwha River. The rerouting of the river is part of the future Elwha dam removal. The construction that was under way was part of constructing the future Port Angeles water treatment plant. We saved thousands of listed species as well as countless sculpins and fresh water clams. For me this was very rewarding because saving these species is helping to preserve the genetic diversity of critical species like the bull trout for future generations.