After building two more antennas today, Cam, Tom and I discover a school of young-of-the-year larval Arctic grayling swimming in the shoals of the Kuparuk River. With the adult grayling drift feeding in the main channel, these baby fish, hatched only about a week or two ago, mimic the same feeding behavior as their parents, only with much smaller prey. Back in the lab, Becca works on perfecting a drip feeder for our experimental set-up in order to provide constant food availability and ensure proper growth for our experiment fish. Go YOY!
Becoming a fine tuned team, we finish setting up the Oks1 antenna in record time.
The Kup5 antenna takes us a bit longer, as the old antenna needs removing before installing a new one. These blackfly larvae won’t be too happy, though. They’ve chosen to colonize the old antenna tubing. Sorry guys.
Waiting for the go-ahead to begin tuning the antenna.
Young-of-the-year (YOY) Arctic grayling swim in the shallows of the Kuparuk River. This year’s low flows and warm temperatures combined with a steady food source create perfect conditions for rapid YOY growth.
Using skills derived from her experience maple syruping in Connecticut, Becca strings together a drip irrigation system to deliver a constant flow of food to our captive larval Arctic grayling, aiming to mimic food availability and growth observed in the wild.
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