Did you know that a blood worm really bleeds? Or that a fluke has both eyes on the same side of its head?
Students from high schools around the county have discovered these odd facts along with a host of other information as part of a program called Explore 2000: Hooked on Knowledge.
While many of the students are from the Hudson County Schools of Technology (based in North Bergen), program organizers have been visiting high schools in Jersey City, North Bergen, Secaucus and elsewhere in the county to get more students interested traveling to various waterways in the tri-state area in a “fish-tagging” project.
“Fish-tagging” is tagging fish with information and releasing them back into the river. When someone later catches a fish with a tag, he or she is supposed to call the person who sent it and report where it ended up. Students use the data to learn about migration and population patterns.
The project has been underway since January.
“This is a voluntary program,” said facilitator John Ponticoruo. “This is something a student does above and beyond academic requirements”.
The program was started in 1999 with the cooperation of the Hudson River fisherman’s Association.
“We started out small with about 15 to 30 kids, and now we have about 350 to 400,” Ponticoruo said. “We’re in the process of contacting other schools throughout to invite their students to join.”
Funding comes from the Fisherman’s Association, donations, and the Schools of Technology (for the academic materials used).
Tyler Julia and Zoraimi Jemenez, two students who took part in the program, explained some of its aims while viewing a video taken of a recent trip to tag fish.
“Most of the time, we were on the Atlantic Princess,” Julia said. “And we went to several different places.”
Each trip takes about three hours, Zoraimi Jemenez said.
Different studies
Although nearly every student got involved in the fish-tagging, fish-catching and other aspects of the trip, each student tended to concentrate on a different aspect of academic study resulting from these trips.
Katayla Rodgers and Gladys Valverde were responsible for showing how the information was recorded.
“Why we tag fish is to find out information,” Valverde said. “We can learn where a fish goes and measure its growth. This has uses in studying them, even in studying the effects of pollution.”
“We tag a fish and write our name, what was caught, how big the fish was,” said Rodgers. “Then we [take the information] to the American Littoral Society where they record the data in a computer for the National Marine Fish Services Lab in Massachusetts.”
Rodgers said researchers access this lab’s data for studies of their own.
Jeudy Jose Rodriguez measured some of the data about their own group’s activities, posting the results on a board with graphs. In the various explorations they group has taken since January to Sandy Hook, Kings Bay, Liberty State Park and Jamaica Bay, they caught 13 different types of fish, he said, for a total of 427 fish. Fluke, at 144 fish, was the most frequently caught, with the Sea Robin second at 109.
“I didn’t know there were so many types of fish,” Rodriguez said.
Some things were outright creepy
Students Doriann Delrosario and Norrey Benito posed in front of a large stuffed model of a salmon to demonstrate how to tag a fish.
After you’ve baited the hook, hooked the fish and reeled it in, you put the small tag near its tail. At this point, you mark down the date on a card, along with the location it was caught, length, your name, and the school’s phone number.
Both students said they caught “a lot of fluke” and weren’t always comfortable with the fact that the fluke has both its eyes on one side of its head. They called this “creepy.”
Quinn Hughes, who did a report for the project on the fluke, said the reason for having eyes on one side is because the fish feeds off the bottom. Hughes liked the fact that the fluke changed its color to match the surroundings.
Brittany Menter and Leslie Andujar got to do their report on sharks, particularly on one known as “the dog fish.”
“A dog fish shark is one that you can find almost anywhere in the world,” said Menter.
Andujar said they grow as long as five feet, although Menter said they are considered harmless.
Fish scales
Corey Edwards did research on fish scales, saying that a study of a single scale can tell the length and age of the fish.
“You take a scale and look at it through the microscope,” Edwards said. “Every line you see is one year.”
Using a chart to calculate the scale’s size, you can also learn the size of the fish. The scales he used came from a striped bass, and his project won at the April Hudson County Science Fair.
Amit Bridgelalo and Marcus Flores were already quite knowledgeable about rods and reels before they started the project. Both said they had fished before.
“You have to use a certain type for where you plan to fish,” said Flores. “You use one kind if you plan to fish on a boat, and another kind on shore.”
Both boys caught fish for the project.
Shereka Washington and Sameriah Jackson had to learn about “live bait,” the worst of which was a vicious little creature called “the blood worm.”
“It’s bleeds when it’s hooked,” Washington said. “And it squiggles even when it’s cut in half. It also bites.”
The squid is easier to hook.
“You just stick the hook through its eyes,” Washington said.
Steven Santos became the hook expert. His displayed showed several types, one with a single hook, another with a double, and a third with three hooks.
“The double hook is good for fly fishing,” he said. “The triple hook is like a single hook, but better.”
Sapan Shaw and Brillian Mills took on striped bass as their project, how to identify one if you catch it, and other oddities. “It has stripes of silver or sometimes blue,” said Mills. “And it smells.”
Mills meant the fish actually sniffed while in the water.
“It has holes near its nose,” Shaw said.
Of course, some of the fish caught on these trips were not tagged at all, but cooked and eaten, as part of the school’s culinary lessons. Glenn Blank, the culinary instructor at the Schools of Technology, showed students had to clean, and prepare the fish for cooking, and the kids shared the meal.