The Fish Highway

The Fish Highway

There is a maze of water and sewage pipes under Wellington’s pavements,beneath manhole covers and bundles of cables. The oldest pipes are lined with bricks. They snake under the streets.

Most of our native fish are nocturnal. They swim,feed and breed in streams at night while we were asleep. When Frances gathers data at night, Frances takes:

*A waterproof notebook

*A pencil

*A camera

*A tape measure

*A motorcycle battery

*A big,bright light

*A GBS

*Several nets

*A bucket                                         

*A large, transparent plastic box to put fish in when she photographs them.

*Also she takes a buddy.

Frances takes these things because it helps here with her data and here photographs.

Fish scientists survey streams in 250-metre snapshots.

They us the GBS to mark out each snapshot coordinates.

This makes it even easier to find the spot in the future.

Snapshot’s supply the scientists with information about the trends overtime. The scientists then enter the data from their field notebooks into spreadsheets on computers and use it to make graphs and charts. Then the scientists also write a report about each snapshots that has been taken for people and organisations who are really really interested in the information.

Electrofishing

An Electrofishing unit is used to catch and count fish.

The unit creates an electric field in the water.

A page from France’s notebook

Frances records how many fishes she finds, what kinds of fish they are, how big they are, and whether any look sick and whether they look fine also are they young or older fish?.

Fish

Frances has found two types of native fish living under Wellington city. Scientists think that other fish may be using the pipes under Wellington, too.

Frances now has been doing this for a long time and she wishes she keeps doing it and to show others how she does it and why she does it.

                                                   The End