Counting Coho at Snow Creek!

Last Monday the crew actually got to see and handle the fish we work to preserve! The task, counting coho smolt at snow creek for the Washington  Department of Fish and Wildlife.  We were so excited to have a hands on experience with the fish, and to work alongside  Technician Cheri Scalf which always means AMAZING homemade cookies. 
    In addition to filling our bellies with oatmeal raisin goodness, Cheri showed us how to identify the coho and distinguish them from other species such as cutthroat, and steelhead.  We suited up in our waders and dipped thousands of tiny coho out of the trap!  We then commenced to counting like crazy. We counted the coho in two categories, small and medium.   Katie had the daunting task of deciphering everyone’s shouts of numbers and sizes, and recording them.  There were so many, it seemed like it might take forever, but the time flew because we were having a blast.
    Cheri took a sample portion of the coho to take scale samples and exact measurements of length.  You can actually tell a lot about a fish from it’s scales.  We learned that it’s possible to determine roughly the age and sex of a fish based on the tiny patterns on its scales. 
    The final count for monday was over 2,000 fish!  James guessed closest to the final count and won a batch of Cheri cookies, much to the envy of the rest of the crew. After counting, we returned our scaly friends back to snow creek to go about their business, and we went off to do more maintenance.  We had such a good time, multiple members of the crew signed up to volunteer with Cheri on our own time.  I’d like to add that James, being the awesome crew supervisor that he is, shared his cookies with all of us.

Learning how to ID smolt

Lou and Randy netting fish out of the trap

 

Fish ID/Count

More pictures