Being able to work out of doors and be out in the lakes and rivers doing that work... trying to hopefully
get some changes on the ground done that are really going to help to protect the environment and make these rivers that I work on, better.
Hopefully at the end of the day I’m doing something that’s actually improving the on-the-ground resources that I’m working on.
My name is Brian Nerbonne, and I work as a Stream Habitat Specialist
for the Department of Natural Resources in the central region of the state.
A lot of what I would do is going out and doing some sampling of streams
looking at where there’s potential habitat problems,
and then from there we can look for solutions; whether it’s trying to
work within that watershed to have better management
to change the run off that’s coming to the river, or maybe even doing some
actual changes to the habitat within the river itself.
I also do a lot of work within the communities that are surrounding these different rivers within the central region.
So I’ll work with these local governments to actually, hopefully make some decisions
that are being made on the ground for how they’re managing their run off from their roads.
I also do some fish management work... so I get to go out and do some sampling on streams
where we’ll go out and see what fish are living in the streams, what the sizes are like,
and from that we can make some decisions about how we’re going to manage that stream
whether that’s to do something with the regulations for what people are allowed to do when they’re fishing there;
so if we set size limits, or reduce the number of fish that people might be able to keep, for example.
And we’ll also look at maybe doing stocking, where we’ll raise fish in a hatchery
and maybe stock them as small little fish, and then they’ll grow hopefully into bigger fish.
You’ve got to be real detail oriented and make sure you’re getting everything done while you’re out there in the field.
A lot of times in field work we’re working in teams too,
so I’ve got to be able to lead that group of folks and make sure everybody’s doing what they need to do,
and so those leaderships skills sometimes come into play as well.
Within this field, a lot of times... if you have just a bachelors degree
you can find jobs, and work your way around to maybe eventually get where you want to go
but if you have an advanced degree, sometimes it helps you to move a little bit more quickly
into getting the job that you really want to get.
So I went and got that masters degree in Fisheries, and from there I was lucky enough
to get a job with the Department of Natural Resources here in Minnesota.
When I first started with the department, I worked in Fergus Falls for a couple of years
doing more entry level fisheries management work.
So I was working on a lot of different things with lakes...
doing sampling on lakes, sampling on streams, raising fish to be stocked into lakes and rivers.
And so, after doing that for several years, I was lucky enough to get a job that
I really like now, where I have a little bit more independence and I’m actually able to go out and
make some decisions on my own about how we’re going to manage some of these lakes and rivers.
I use spread sheets and different common word processing sorts of things, but I’ll also
use some pretty specialized software like geographic information systems (or GIS)
which is a tool where you can actually do some pretty sophisticated mapping sort of things.
So a lot of the stream habitat design work that I do, I’ll go out the GIS software.
When I’m out in the field I end up using some specialized equipment to sample fish especially;
we actually use something called a backpack electro-fisher, or sometimes even on bigger rivers we’ll use a boat electro fisher.
And it’s a really good way to sample fish in a river where there’s a lot of logs
and different things that make it hard to use a net to catch fish.
The electro-fishing... we put a probe in the water and it sends a real mild electrical
current in the water that actually stuns the fish that are around it.
And then when they’re stunned we can go and scoop them up with a net and put them in a bucket of water.
The fish come around really quickly and they’re really healthy,
and so we can sample them really effectively without really causing much harm to them.
We’ll use a laser level that gives us real detailed elevation information
so we can look at the exact shape of the channel, the exact slope of the stream as it flows through that particular reach.
We can look at what the elevations around the flood plane are... and all of that gives us good information about what the habitat’s like
And then from there I can use that information to design maybe a habitat project, if that’s something that seems like it’s warranted.
It used to be, in fish management, a lot of what we did was manage the fish.
We were going out and sampling the fish, we were stocking the fish,
and maybe we’d tinker a little bit with the regulations that people had for fishing.
But beyond that, we weren’t really looking at habitat very much,
we weren’t looking at what was going on in the watershed around these lakes and rivers.
And we’ve really come to appreciate that that’s really important, and that we should be putting a lot more time into
trying to help the decisions that are being made around these lakes and rivers
to make sure that what’s being done isn’t really polluting them
and causing there to be poor fish populations that are in those lakes.
So, what we’re trying to do is actually do more of that sort of people management sort of work,
to go out there and work within the watersheds, and help people to make better decisions.
And hopefully it will benefit those lakes and rivers in the long run.
One thing I’ll tell a lot of people that are interested in going into the field is that
they should really try to get as much experience as they can.
Find an office that’s in their area and volunteer to help them with some of their field work, for example,
and a lot of times the office is more than happy to have an extra person tag along
It’s a big help to us as an agency, and it’s a great way to get experience for somebody as well.
I’m doing work that I really believe in, and so I feel like I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.
Some of the things that I do, actually are benefiting a lot of other people, and you know... people into the future.