Electrofishing with NHDES

May's theme of Fishing and Environmental Science covered a variety of topics in the weekly troop meetings over the course of the month. Troop 99 learned and experienced the following lessons:

water filtration
fishing safety (knots and fishing rods, etc)
tree identification

The pièce de résistance of May's theme was an electrofishing event in conjunction with New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES). We would like to thank our Scoutmaster Mr. Wood and Mr. Chapman, both of NHDES, for this very educational and interactive activity.

For this event, Mr. Chapman explained electrofishing, how we can tell the health of a stream by the fish that are caught, and then gave the scouts a hands-on demonstration of the process. Geared up in rubber boots and gloves, and waders, the scouts were able to go right in the stream and participate in the fish collection process. Some used nets to capture the stunned fish, and others held the collection buckets.

To begin the process, one scout used an electrical conductivity meter to take a reading of the stream water, and Max measured the width of the stream using a rangefinder. He determined the width was 14 meters.

Mr. Wood, looking a lot like a Ghostbuster, headed upstream operating the backpack electrofisher, while the scouts scooped up the fish behind him as they floated downstream.

Collecting the fish was exciting, and the scouts caught a few different species, like minnows and madtoms. Mr. Chapman identified the different species and made the tallies. The fish were counted and then released back into the water.