A Few Guests Join Us in the Field

This week, we completed our final fish sampling field work for the summer gut content analyses projects at the lab. Our goal was to sample at five sites to get additional fishes for comparison and we were really hoping for a variety of sizes, which we certainly got. We were joined by GCRL's science communication and outreach coordinator, who snapped some amazing photographs of the team working in the field and the amazing sea life we encountered. We caught an Atlantic stingray in one of our seine pulls, plenty of catfish, some blue crabs, shrimp, and many other charismatic animals. The birds and dolphins were very happy with our field work, as we can only keep some of the species we caught, so they enjoyed an easy breakfast/lunch. The dolphin pictured here swam right up to the boat when we were tossing fish back and stayed around for both our fishing replicates at the site. Another dolphin (or perhaps the same individual) joined us at the next site and then at the end of the day, an osprey perched up on a pylon watching over the water.

Now that all of our field sampling is done, Garrett and Nikko will finish dissecting the fishes and identifying their stomach contents, before analyzing all the data. They will be presenting their work at a summer undergraduate research forum at LSU, a testament to the hard work they've put in this summer. However, before we say goodbye to them, Garrett and Nikko will join me on our rescheduled multi-day research expedition to the Mississippi River and Garden Island Bay, Louisiana. We will have full days of sediment coring, sonar deployments, and water quality sampling as part of this MissDelta research experience. I am excited to get undergraduates from all different academic disciplines in the field and to give them a taste for life as a marine and coastal scientist.

As we are leaving next week for the cruise, I will not be able to post, so stay tuned for pictures and more coming July 23!

---