Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Biology students help inventory fish
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Jim Bandoli, associate professor of biology, and four of his students found and handled almost 2,000 fish in a government-sponsored study authorized by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The fish were in streams at the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center. “Every 20 years or so, they have to do a complete inventory of vertebrates, to make sure they don’t have any endangered or threatened species,” Bandoli said. “They had last done it in 1987, and decided it was time to do it again. So this summer, I was contracted to do a fish survey at Crane.” Bandoli, along with students Jake England, Borzou Ouranous, Jacob Schmitt, and Jason Chandler, spent time this summer manning 19 checkpoints in the base’s four streams, inventorying every species of fish in the water. “At each site, we would go out and spend 45 minutes to an hour with these nets, seining – which is basically how you catch the fish,” Bandoli said. “And then we’d look at them, identify them, and release the ones we could identify. The ones we couldn’t identify were brought back to the lab for identification.” The survey provided a valuable service to the administration at Crane, and it provided a valuable learning tool for the students, many of whom hadn’t had such practical use for what they’d learned in class. England said he saw fish he never would have expected, in what he said was the first time he’d had a hands-on application for what he was learning from his professors. “It was a great experience, because I felt like I was using my major – I was out in the field, seeing and doing what we’re learning about in the classroom,” he said. “I felt privileged to be out there; Crane is beautiful.” |
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