FIELDWORK: RAIN OR SHINE!
The best part of fieldwork is being outside and being able to camp, be on the water, and connect with the river. However, this can also sometimes come with challenges! This year, our field team had some beautiful sunny days alternating with some downpours, and temperatures ranging from 2°C to 25°C!
Through it all, the team caught some namayo (lake sturgeon) to take some samples from the fish and then release them back in the water, to learn more about the health of the fish. The team also pulled up, downloaded, and changed the batteries in all of the underwater receivers that listen for all of our tagged namayo all through the year, before putting the receivers back in the water for another year of data collection.
On the Lower Mattagami River, our team also collected some of the benthic invertebrates (the little bugs that live on the bottom of the river) since namayo like to eat these buys. Learning more about the bugs can tell us about how the river is doing, and also about how namayo is doing.
And a highlight on this trip was that a new postdoctoral fellow with our team, Haley MacLeod, also got the chance to hold her very first namayo!
All in all, rain or shine, the dedicated field team was grateful to experience many of the different moods on the Lower Mattagami River, while learning more about this river and its amazing inhabitants.
