ABOVE: Students work quickly to 

 move fish from nets to waiting tubs. 

 The field study will provide a variety of 

 species for lab work at East Carolina 

 University. 



Immersed 

 in science 



For his part, 

 Rulifson focuses 

 on fishery 

 biology and 

 fisheries 

 management, 

 while Norton 

 looks at fish 

 ecology and 

 physiology. 



"Research- 

 ers must know 

 how to catch 

 fish, and 

 managers must 

 know the 

 biological 

 basics," Norton 

 explains. 



Their 

 differences yield 

 dividends for the 

 students who 

 find themselves 

 on a weekend 

 totally immersed 

 in applied 

 science at the 

 refuge. 



Before 

 breakfast, the 

 students already 

 have completed 

 the first round of 

 water quality 

 data collection near the lodge. 



Now, with gear packed into a van and 

 pick-up truck, they head down the unpaved 

 road that follows the canal seven miles 

 from the lodge to the Pamlico Sound. 



A petite brunette — nearly swallowed 

 whole by waders — joins classmates 

 walking a seine net into the near-shore 

 waters of the sound at the mouth of the 

 canal. Other students are dipping black 

 water into coolers that will serve as holding 

 tanks for the morning catch. Still another 

 group is recording water quality data — 

 location, time, tidal information, water 

 depth, turbidity, pH, salinity, oxygen, 



sediments, conductivity, and water and air 

 temperatures. 



Later, they'll match the data with the 

 list of fish caught and the type of gear used 

 at each site. 



The students are having a difficult 

 time pulling the net to shore in the shallow 

 sound water. The tide is out, and the nets 

 are weighted down with organic material 

 — decaying grasses and shrubs that were 

 deposited by hurricane-related flooding in 

 1999. 



In spite of the difficulty, the seine has 

 captured a fair sampling of fish — 

 anchovies, kingfish, gobies, skillet fish, 

 silver perch, croaker, red drum, flounder, a 

 pinfish with a leech on its tail, and a mullet 

 without a tail. 



It's a teach-as-you-go situation for 

 Rulifson and Norton. 



Rulifson points out mouth characteris- 

 tics of two fish. "If the fish has an 

 underbite, it's a bottom feeder; if its mouth 

 is turned up, it's a surface feeder," he 

 explains. 



The students continue to toss the fish 

 into the waiting containers, calling out the 

 litany of common names. In response, 

 Norton chants the biological nomenclature. 

 "Common names vary from place to place. 

 In some places a skillet fish is any fish that 

 can fit in a pan," Norton says. 



Back at the lodge workroom, the 

 students work quickly to separate, bag and 

 refrigerate portions of the catch. Rulifson 

 and Norton will have plenty to share for lab 

 work back at ECU — and the weekend is 

 far from over. 



"We prefer to use fresh-caught 

 specimens for research," Norton says. 

 "Prepared and preserved 'bought' speci- 

 mens may be tainted by chemicals." 



Testing gear and stamina 



Over lunch, the students talk excitedly 

 about their work. Purvi Mody, a senior 

 majoring in ecology education, says, "You 

 can't get this kind of experience in a 

 classroom. I want to learn the tools for 

 fisheries management so I can bring the 

 skills to developing countries after I 

 graduate." 



8 SPRING 2001 



