What does Bryan do?

Sometimes it's hard to describe what Bryan is doing for Grad School. 

I decided to dedicate this post to making it more clear and easy to visualize for me any any of you who have listened to me try to describe his work.  

Bryan was camping doing research for 10 days recently and the girls and I went up to visit. I took pictures and documented what he does. So if you wanted to know what this fish lover is studying here is a little peak.

In the summer and fall the steelhead run up the river into Idaho....what's a steelhead?

That is a steelhead.

Steelhead are large rainbow trout that go to the ocean and then back to rivers to spawn just like salmon do. The difference is that salmon are programmed to die after they spawn, but steelhead can swim back down to the ocean after they spawn and repeat the process again. But for some reason only about 1-2% of Idaho steelhead make it back up to spawn for a second time, but nobody really knows why so few of them make it, much less than in other places. Bryan's grad project is to study the migration patterns of post-spawn steelhead, (also known as kelts) and try to see if he can figure out where some of them may be dying. He thinks they might get lost or slow down too much once they hit the reservoirs of the 8 dams they have to cross on their way to the ocean. He is also taking blood samples to compare the migration patterns to things like cholesterol and hormone levels.

How do they catch them?

This is a weir operated by Idaho Fish and game. It's made of metal rods all lined up and spaced so that a big fish can't fit between them. When they get to the weir they are directed into a trap box where they wait to be released after being tagged. They catch the fish going upstream and coming back down.

This is what the trap box that catches the fish swimming upstream looks like. 

When they have a fish to tag Bryan and a fish and game technician fill up a holding tub and net the fish out of the box into the tub. The tub water has been treated with an anesthetic to calm the fish.

After getting the fish in the holding tub they check for PIT-tags using the yellow wand.

What is a pit tag?

This is a pit tag. It is a very small tag that they insert into the underside of the fish using a syringe. Each tag contains a unique code so that they can identify each individual fish. The tags are detected and the code is recorded when the fish comes close to a PIT-tag reader, like at the dams, or is caught again and scanned with the yellow wand.

Then they take some stats on the fish. They measure how long it is, take some tissue for DNA testing, and they draw blood. This blood is put through a centrifuge to separate the plasma and put on dry ice. It is taken back to Bryan's lab for analysis.

If there is not already a pit tag in the fish they inject one in the underside of the fish.

This year Bryan also used a new type of tag. It's called an acoustic tag and looks like this:

 Acoustic tags can be detected much farther away than pit tags. For pit tags to be detected, the fish needs to come within about 18 inches of a reader, like in the fish ladders at the dams, or be caught again and scanned with a yellow wand. Bryan set up acoustic tag detectors at different places in the river like bridges, boat ramps, and suspended under buoys down in Lower Granite Reservoir. When the tagged fish swims by, the data is recorded.

An acoustic tag is much larger than a PIT-tag so it needs to be surgically implanted into the fish. Bryan cuts open the fish was a scalpel, the tag is inserted and then he stitches the fish up.

Then the fish goes back in the holding box for 24 hours to make sure it's doing OK. The fish is let go the next day and the wait for information starts. Once a week Bryan checks all the receivers to see if the fish passed that spot yet. So far all of his fish have made it at least part way, and some are continuing on their way to the ocean. 

Bryan will be writing his thesis on the information he gets from these fish.This spring was his last field season. Now he is starting the task of analyzing all his data and writing his thesis. Yikes!!