[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[DUCKS QUACKING]
Today, I'm coming to you from the middle of the Potomac
River in the middle of a boat.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome back to the US Fish and Wildlife Services' Conservation
Connect.
I'm your host, Chelsea McKinney as we explore exciting careers,
wildlife species, and different technologies
that conservation professionals use to observe and study
wildlife.
Today, I'm here with fisheries biologist Alan
Temple with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Alan, thank you so much for having us today.
Sure.
My pleasure.
Alan, can you tell us, what exactly
is a fisheries biologist?
A fisheries biologist is someone who studies fish.
And they study fish in a lot of different ways.
There are some fisheries biologists
that work with sport fish and game fish that people catch.
So they're trying to make better fishing.
There's others that look to determine if the streams are
healthy or not.
And they look at the fish populations to do that.
Can you tell us your story?
How did you first get interested in a fisheries career that led
you to the job you have today?
When I was a kid, we went fishing quite a bit.
My folks took me out fishing.
And I loved the different kinds of fishes,
and the colors of them, and being out,
and learning about them.
There was a lot of questions.
And I just slowly became interested, and wanted
to be a fisheries biologist.
Can you tell us what exactly we're looking at?
Well, yes.
This boat is called an electrofishing boat.
And we do all kinds of different sampling.
So sometimes, we use nets, and sometimes, we use electricity.
And we put electricity in the water
to cause a fish to come up so that we can net them
and study them, sample them.
And so we have to have certain things to do that,
and one is a generator.
And the generator makes the electricity.
It makes the electricity.
And then for the generator, the electricity
goes from here to this control box.
And this is the brain of the boat.
And on the brain, or the control box, I can change the voltage.
I can chase the voltage from high to low.
And I also have safety switches, because we're really concerned
about safety.
Because it is electricity and water,
so we want to be careful.
And so from the control box, then, the electricity
goes out wires and cables out to these booms in front
and to the boat hull.
And the booms in front have these metal pieces,
these droppers.
We call them electrodes.
Hey, Michelle.
Hi.
What do we have going on over here?
I'm just prepping the boat to get ready.
And what exactly are we looking at?
What are you working on?
This is an electrode boom.
So basically, what this does is it
brings the electricity from the generator
and puts it into the water.
OK.
We're ready.
All right.
Let's do it.
We had the chance to take the boat out
to see what we could find.
Michelle showed me how to use the net to pick up
a small amount of bass.
Then it was my turn.
I found a huge carp which I had a tough time picking up.
Then it was time to head to shore
to see what we had caught.
We'll start with this one, which is called the American eel.
And it has a unique life history in that it grows up
in rivers-- freshwater rivers like the Potomac, then
as an adult, goes downstream into the ocean,
all the way down to the Sargasso Sea.
And there it spawns, lays eggs.
And eggs hatch, and the young ones
grow a little bit there with the sea turtle young, too.
That's where sea turtles also are.
And then they come out of the Sargasso Sea
as young, come up the rivers again, and grow up to adult.
This guy was so slippery, it was nearly impossible
for me to hold.
OK.
Well, that's a common carp.
And it's actually a native of China and other places,
not here.
It was brought to the United States as-- well,
the government brought it here for food fish and a sport fish.
They also have barbels, like a catfish.
Yes.
This is pretty big.
I don't know how much longer I can hold it.
Once we were done, we made sure to release everything back
into the water.
Alan, what advice would you give to our viewers
that want to become future fisheries biologist?
Well, the first thing is stay in school,
because fisheries biologist have college degrees.
And they want to pay attention to all their courses,
because they're all important.
Most people think right away about biology as being
important, which it is.
But math also is important.
Because we often use math to calculate how much voltage
we need to put in the water.
When we get data or numbers back from fish,
like how many there were, their lengths,
we analyze that information, that data.
Alan, thank you so much for taking me out on the water.
This is a great work day.
Thank you.
Who would have thought electricity
could be used to study fish populations
and be able to help us understand what species of fish
were in certain rivers and streams?
I wonder what types of technologies researchers
will think of next, all to help protect and study wildlife.
Remember to get outside and make your own observations.
And don't forget your notebook.
We'll see you guys next time on the US
fish and Wildlife Service Services' Conservation Connect.