Boreal Toads - Fishlake National Forest

Being a Fisheries Technician involves working with not only fish, but amphibians as well. We have been spending many days in search of the elusive Boreal Toad (Anaxyrus boreas). Also known as the Western Toad, this species is distributed throughout the western United States and is found in high elevation wetlands. Last summer, I gained a deep fascination with these creeping critters. My previous experience working with Boreal Toads is what helped me obtain my current seasonal position in Richfield with the Forest Service. Although it can often be boring and uneventful walking around looking for toads, the time spent searching becomes well worth it when you find one. On the Paunsaugunt Plateau, we found a total of 15 adult toads during the entire summer. While on the Fishlake National Forest, I found 10 toads in one day. That was on Thousand Lake Mountain, where they appear to be more abundant. However, Monroe Mountain seems to be experiencing a decreasing population trend. We are implementing PIT tagging as a mark/recapture method to better estimate population size of the Boreal Toads on Monroe Mountain. PIT tags are little ID units that we insert under the skin of toads. Once captured, we will scan a toad with the PIT tag reader. If it is a recapture, we will see their unique ID number on the display screen. If we don't get an ID number from a toad, then we will give it one by PIT tagging. As time passes, the more we find that are not tagged, the greater the population size is estimated to be. Should we continue to find the same toads which are already tagged and fewer new unmarked individuals, a lower population size will be estimated. We can also note their individual movement by recording GPS coordinates each time we encounter a toad. It was a very exciting day when we found the first toad on Monroe Mountain. As a rule, whoever finds the toad gives it a name after it has been PIT tagged. I did not find the first one, but the name given to the first PIT tagged toad on Monroe Mountain was Biscuit.

Manning Meadow Fish Spawn

We headed up to Manning Meadow on Monroe Mountain to help the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources with their annual cutthroat trout spawning. We assisted them for three of the eight days it took to complete what was needed for the spawn. For those of you who do not know, a fish spawn is a breeding event. Fish, along with many other animals, breed only one time each year and that timing varies between species. Environmental conditions and genetic backgrounds trigger a species to exhibit behavior and prepare for this event. For cutthroat trouts on Monroe Mountain, the timing and conditions are happening this week. Males develop spawning colors which consist of a red coloration to their fins and bellies. This is one signal that it is time to breed. The other signal is that the fish begin collecting around the stream inlets of the reservoir. Trout, like their salmon cousins, generally swim upstream for spawning. Structures have been built to prevent these fish from moving upstream, however they will instinctively go as far upstream as they can. This cement structure is where we were able to contain the fish heading upstream. Fish were sorted by gender and the squeezing process began (see video). This is how fish eggs are collected from the wild and taken to be raised in a hatchery. If my understanding is correct, each female can average around 900 eggs and 70-80% of them will be successfully reared in the hatchery. Once grown, these fish will be stocked in the Manning Meadow reservoir and other forest streams and lakes throughout the region.

Bonneville Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii)

Fisheries Technician - Fishlake National Forest

If people tell you that making a blog is easy, they are wrong. It takes a lot of time and thought to make a decent post that will hopefully be interesting to your audience. I have spent the last month trying to catch up on posts for each day of my trip to Nicaragua. I was usually able to get about two posts a week published on my page. That didn't leave room or time to make posts regarding my work as a Fisheries Technician. Because my blog is chronological, I didn't want my Nicaragua posts hidden behind more recent posts. If any of you keep a journal, then you know how hard it is when you get behind. You find yourself with two options; one is to try and write about each individual day and/or event like it had just happened or two, try and summarize into one entry everything that has happened since you last wrote. Not recording those experiences is out of the question if you are serious about your journal. As for me and the purposes of this blog, there was not that many unique experiences during the first month of work which are worth recording here. I did have cool experiences, like finding a new breeding population of Leopard frogs (Rana pipiens) or assisting the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in a gill netting survey on Fishlake. However, they are not recent and lack photographic evidence to constitute an entire blog post each. With that said, you may think that these referenced experiences are equivalent to my next two posts and therefore deserve their own description, however for the sake of time and convenience I have taken the second option in journal keeping and summarized the experiences very briefly. Check back for new posts as I continue my journey as a biologist. I want this to be a professional representation of me and also provide an enjoyable read for those interested in my life. Feel free to let me know what you think about my blog. I have already received a few recommendations for improvements.