2019 TIC season draws to a close We still have a few Release Days to go but many are in the books. Send us your videos, photos, and reports! I'd also love to hear if you get any press coverage for your RD (or your TIC program in general). Lincoln Community School RD Devin Schrock, at Lincoln Community School, shared this link to his school's Web site, which features, right on its front page, a great slideshow of photos from their Release Day. LCS, by the way, is one of those fortunate Vermont schools that sits right at the edge of a lovely trout stream. Devin wrote: We had a great release on Monday with awesome volunteers, too. 78 fish made their maiden voyage in the New Haven : ) Fisher Elementary School RD Fisher Elementary School had a fun, if cool and damp, Release Day on the Roaring Branch at Kelley Stand in Green Mountain National Forest. As he always does, teacher Charlie Cummings came meticulously prepared. He had recruited numerous volunteers , including three US Forest Service staff one of whom was Martina Barnes, the brand new Ranger of the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes Forests. Charlie had an FES lanyard/name tag for each of us. Gear was neatly arranged, and each of his four activity stations was identified with a special sign. He got up early that day! Proctor Elementary School RD Michael Manney and his Proctor students had nicer weather for their Release Day at the Pittsford Recreation Area. The day started cloudy and cool but warmed as the morning wore on. Once the sun came out, it was delightful. Volunteers Trip Westcott and Tom Culvert taught casting with both fly and spinning gear; Michael led a perspective drawing activity, and I staffed the macroinvertebrate collecting and classifying station. One of the personal benefits of participating in these typically half-day RDs is that I can fish a stream I don't usually visit. The PES RD allowed me to "wet a fly" in Sugar Hollow Brook. Turns out there are brook trout in there! Deformed fish Mike Carrano, of Pownal Elementary, Vermont's southwestern-most TIC school, is a very experienced and successful TIC teachers. This year has been another good year for Mike and his students, but for the first time ever, deep into the TIC season, one of Mike's otherwise seemingly healthy trout developed a deformity. A few days later, a second fish displayed similar symptons. Mike wrote this about the situation: Here is the video of the trout I have concerns about. It looks like we have a second trout starting to display the same sick behaviors. You can see at the end of the video the smaller trout’s spine is starting to get that “S” shape. The bigger one you can see the deformity. Here's a super short video of the two quarantined fry. I sent the video to Tom Jones, Fish Health Biologist for Vermont's Department of Fish and Wildlife. He responded with this: This looks like a condition termed scoliosis (curvature of the spine in this fashion). In can be caused by many factors such as but not limited to water quality, nutrition, certain types of fish pathogens, genetics! The teacher mentioned Whirling Disease, but there is no biological link through the eggs that they have received! We have never detected WD in a Vermont fish culture facility. I'm not concerned about the stocking of these brook trout fry! My best advise is to euthanize the fish like this and continue with the release plans. Being just a few miles from the state line, Mike knows the lead cold water fisheries biologist for the state of Massachusetts. Mike gave him all the info he had sent to me along with the video. The Massachusetts biologist thinks it’s Whirling Disease. That would be a great concern. I suggested to Mike that he see if the Massachusetts biologist would be able to conduct an autopsy or other form of investigation to establish conclusively what the problem is. Curriculum idea Devin Schrock, of Lincoln Community School, sent me some materials with this introduction: Thanks for all the tidbits and advice you post on the blog! It's only my 2nd year with TIC so I'm finding it very useful. I'm sorry, however, that I haven't been more active in sharing our work from LCS. But, better late than never...here are resources for teaching external anatomy of the brook trout. Here are four images of the final products. Devin provided three documents to help other teachers lead their students in this anatomy activity:
Thanks Devin! Cleaning up! Once your program is over, don't delay in cleaning your tank and other equipment. The longer you put off that process, the harder it becomes. Many teachers give students the opportunity to help with this. Our current TIC Manual has instructions in Chapter 10, which starts on page 41. If you have a flow-through chiller, you may want to consider replacing the tubing if it's very grungy. Tubing isn't very expensive. When it's all clean, make sure you put your equipment and especially the tank in a safe location. That means a place where it won't be "played with" or accidentally banged into.
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Joe Mark is Lead Facilitator of Vermont's Trout in the Classroom program.In June 2012, I retired after 40 years in higher education, having spent the last 32 years of my career as dean at Castleton. One of the first things I volunteered to do in retirement was to work with a parent-friend to help the Dorset School, where his kids and my Vermont grandkids attend, start a TIC program. Gradually that commitment grew into my current role, which is both demanding and highly rewarding. Archives
December 2019
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