Shockingly Enjoyable: My First Weeks Electroshocking Fish and Water Sampling

The subsequent week, I used to be with the Aquatic Habitat Restoration staff to do backpack electrofishing in a creek that had lately been restored. Backpack electrofishing is a surveying technique wherein a battery-powered backpack emits an electrical present into the water. This briefly stuns the fish, permitting us to soundly web them for inhabitants counts and work up. The anode pole is held by the backpack operator; it’s the place the electrical energy originates. We labored in a staff of three: the backpack operator, a netter, and one other netter who would maintain the bucket of collected fish. When the anode button was pressed, the fish started swimming in direction of the pole. This allowed us to web them and put them right into a bucket for later inspection. This looks like a scary course of as we’re wading by way of water that’s being shocked by electrical energy, however it is rather protected. The backpack mechanically shuts off energy while you lean to stop shock if the operator had been to fall. This was partially annoying because it beeped when this occurred, and we needed to climb over many downed logs, however it’s a crucial security characteristic. Also, we put on 2 pairs of gloves to make sure security and waders to cowl our our bodies.

In this picture, I’m engaged on netting the fish. It is simple for them to maneuver rapidly downstream, so it’s crucial that you simply work rapidly as properly. You may also see the 2 pairs of gloves we’re sporting; the bottom ones are the yellow rubber electrical gloves, with one other pair on prime to keep away from getting these ones torn. 

The hardest a part of this process was climbing over all of the downed logs and across the branches. Our websites had been again within the woods, which meant we needed to undergo plenty of brush in between every go to succeed in the beginning of the positioning,