The Wrack

This spring, our research staff will be heading out to nearby rivers to begin a fish-monitoring project and you can get involved.

We're collaborating with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) to generate up-to-date population information on species with the greatest conservation need in coastal Maine. DMR staff have identified potential spawning habitat for diadromous species such as alewife, rainbow smelt, and brook trout in the Merriland River, Mousam River, and Little River (Biddeford). Now we’re off too see if these species are indeed using these habitats.

I'm interested in the relationship between human communities and their environments. That is, how human activities have impacted watershed environments, coastal ecologies, and others and how environmental changes such as climate change and sea level rise are affecting human communities especially in coastal regions.

In his recent post, Spreading the Fish Ladder News, Jake mentioned our imminent use of passive integrated transponders, or PIT tags, to track fish. But just what is a PIT tag and exactly how does it work?

A passive integrated transponder is a miniature electronic circuit typically encased in glass and implanted under an animal's skin or in a body cavity (the fish tags we'll use are thin and just 12mm long). Each tag is programmed with a unique number to identify an individual animal. That number is read automatically when the animal travels close to a receiving station.