Field Trip to New Bedford
August 18, 2009 at 11:34 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: fish auction, interns, port agent, whaling museum
Hey guys! My name is Elisha Garcia, most call me Eli. I’m a two week intern at WHSA.
So far it has been great. From orientation, animal training at the Buttonwood Park Zoo, to today which was the tour of the New Bedford Port Agent’s office lead by Katie Almeida.
Fresh off the boat in New Bedford
She gave us a detailed tour and explained in great depth what makes the Port tick. She also explained how it is such a crucial yet obvious part of the process for obtaining much of our seafood.
Cold and stinky, but educational!
Half of the building we toured was a huge freezer for fish and shellfish, so we all had to wear some sort of hat and a sweatshirt. Drew, another two week intern decided to make everyone else jealous by wearing an extremely warm beanie.
We tested out the sleeping quarters of a replica whaling ship at the New Bedford Whaling Museum
After our tour of the Port, Katie took us to the old fish auction site in what seemed to be just an old parking lot by the sea. When I learned how important that old parking lot was to the fishing industry, I was blown away. It can easily be compared to the stock exchange at Wall Street in New York. From there we made our way down to the New Bedford Whaling Museum, where we had a guided tour waiting for us. We caught a glimpse of how important the whaling industry was to the port of New Bedford and other places like it from a short movie before hand. From there we learned about the men who sought whales for years on end along with their equipment and how they lived on the ship. After our long day of walking and absorbing so much information, we returned back to our home base at the aquarium. Eli
Understanding Fish Populations
August 17, 2009 at 11:02 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsTags: flounder, interns, monkfish, tagging
Hello readers,
It’s Josh.
Today, we were given a lecture by Larry Alade, about his job at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) National Marine Fisheries Service. It was interesting how his background in computer science, biology, and math came together in fisheries science: he uses mathematical models to predict the population of fish. This involves in-depth knowledge about the behavior of a specific fish: what they eat, if they migrate, their predator/prey relationships, etc. He uses tracking devices to study their migration patterns and how that affects the fish stocks. This information on fish is used to assess how populations are doing, their movement and behavior, and what the possible effect fishing will have on them.
Larry Alade shows us how to tag a monkfish
Larry did a fish tagging demonstration for us with monkfish and flounder. To tag a monkfish, he made a small cut in the skin of the fish and inserted a bullet shaped tag between the skin and the muscle. To prevent infections and to keep the tag in place, he stitched up the incision. These tags will take the temperature and pressure readings of the water while the fish is swimming every ten minutes, for three years. To make a tagged fish more obvious to fishermen, they have yellow markers protruding from the fish, attached to the spine. The fish were surprisingly calm throughout all of this and barely moved during the whole five minute procedure.
Thanks for reading!
Josh
Rehabing a Wolffish
August 3, 2009 at 5:29 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: interns, veterinarian, wolffish
Hi. My name is Drew McCabe, and I am a two week intern here at the WHSA.
Administering anesthesia to a wolffish
Today we operated on wolffish’s eye because it was swollen. We got the fish out of his tank and immediately gave him anesthesia. Once the wolffish was completely sedated, we made an incision behind his eye to drain any air or built up fluids behind its eye. But what we found were large amounts of puss in an abscess, which could cause this fish pain and stress. During the entire operation Dr. Sims and Dr. Hancock removed the puss and put pain killers into the fish while Megan-Elizabeth pushed water with anesthesia through its mouth and gills so the fish would stay relaxed, asleep, and most importantly alive throughout the operation. So after about ten minutes of flushing out and draining the puss from underneath his eye, they went over and weighed the wolffish, and he weighed 17.066 grams after the surgery. They weighed him so that they could figure out what dosages of medications to give the fish. After they weighed the wolffish, they were finally able to wake him up and put him in a safe tank where he could recover. Rachel, Dr. Sims, and Dr. Hancock decided not to close up the incision but to put antibiotics on it and let whatever infection was left drain out before the incision healed. The vets also placed the wolffish on antibiotics for 2 weeks so that he can fight the infection better.
That is one part of my day here at WHSA.
Drew
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