The activity I chose to participate in this morning was to volunteer with a regularly scheduled sampling of the macroinvertebrates in the Black River. This is done by the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council and Trout Unlimited.
The health of a waterway can easily be assessed by seeing what kinds of wildlife it hosts. Macroinvertebrates are just what they sound like. Macro= large enough that you don't need a microscope, and invertebrates= animals with no backbone, so things like insect larvae snails and worms.
The equipment being readied.
We all met at a bridge on the Black River, known for good fishing.
Believe it or not, I had found my waders (which I seldom use) and they didn't leak. Several people were assigned to go up and downstream from the bridge with nets and pails. Loren (the person in charge) and I did width and water depth measurements.
When samples began to be returned to the table, they were dumped in the yellow pans. Then several of us began sorting through with small screened spoons and tweezers looking for things that were alive.
They were sorted by species into ice cube trays. We found lots. This was right at the beginning of the search. After that I was helping search and forgot to take another picture.
We found lots of larvae- the largest group was mayflies. Some stonefly, lots of caddisflies, damselflies, dragonflies, a few snails and worms, a few diptera (two winged flies), and a couple of things I didn't hear what they were. I remembered more than I thought I might have from my one previous experience doing this almost 60 years ago. But I learned new things too.
Some were kept in sampling bottles, but most were released back to the stream.
The data will be entered in the watershed coucil's database, but I think the concensus was that this location is healthy.
Trout Unlimited provided a tailgate lunch on the spot!
We were done in a couple of hours!
There is a dinner and awards yet tonight, but I have to head for home immediately afterwards, so I'm blogging early.
 | See Pigeon River Country |
3 comments:
That sounds really interesting.
Java Bean: "Ayyy, I would be happy to play with snails and worms in exchange for lunch! In fact, I would probably do it for nothing!"
Ann- I really enjoyed this
Bean- Maybe, but the Megaloptera larvae was big and scary. You might not have wanted to play with that one
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