I am interested what the study is about?
This day we collected plankton samples at two locations, Watmough Slough on Lopez and out at Waldron Island in the photo. We also did a food fish beach seine (80' net) at Watmough to try to get samples of Candlefish (Sandlance) and Herring. We caught about 2000 juvenile Pink Salmon with a bunch of young of the year Greenling in the mix. We did get about 8 Sandlance.
The plankton is collected to see what the abundance of food sources there are throughout the year for juvenile salmon, especially Chinook, and food fish like Sandlance, Herring, and, increasingly, Anchovies. Starting the first week of May, we will be using a larger net (120') to target food (for salmon) fish and juvenile Chinook Salmon. This is an ongoing study over a decade at these locations. The Chinook, if caught, are lavaged (made to barf up their dinner by carefully injecting saltwater into their stomachs (mortality rate less than 1%). They can then correlate the salmon's diet with what is available at the time.
For a more detailed description and results, Kwiaht.org is where to look.
