Snail Spirals

I had a very fun day yesterday, surveying for bull trout in the Lostine River. This is part of a US Fish and Wildlife effort, and it's the third year I've helped out.  Bull trout are a protected species, listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and these surveys provide data to aid their recovery.

We saw more bull trout yesterday than I've ever seen before, which was very cool. We counted the number of fish we saw, estimated their size, and counted and measured all the redds (nests) we saw. It's still early in the spawning season and many of the redds had fish still in them, actively spawning.

Like this:



I had my waterproof phone case along again, and managed a couple underwater pictures.



It's amazing to see these rare fish in the wild, doing what they do, as they've been doing it for centuries. Any day you see a protected species is a good day. This is what makes my job satisfying.