Wanting to Give Back

As with everything at USC, an opportunity fell into my lap. How could I ignore what was being pushed in my direction? Through it, I found my passion for what I wanted to do. I knew I always liked fish but was never quite sure why. I had a fascination with them and all things ocean life. Hence why I became a marine science major, but I was unsure what to do with my degree. That was until my time with the Department of Natural Resources where I learned the importance of aquaculture, which helped change my point of view of my career going forward. I found what I truly enjoy doing.

 

Last spring I took an aquaculture class with Leonard Rose. The class went over the basics and definitions of the practice. Aquaculture is the culturing of fish. It is raising fish from unfertilized eggs to fully formed fish fry. It’s a long process that can happen in a few different ways. The class covered different ways and the best habitats for specific species of fish, freshwater, and saltwater. When looking into habitat you have to look into salinity, substrate, temperature, and many other conditions. The class also covered various the different technologies that go into aquaculture and their functions. The course also had a field trip attached to the course, and that was the start of the shift of what I wanted. 

 

The class field trip was to Bayless Hatchery in Charleston, South Carolina. It was a freshwater hatchery that specialized in striped bass. They had a few ready for us to attempt to strip spawn while we were there. Strip spawning is applying pressure to the fish’s stomach in a downward motion to help them release their eggs. They asked for volunteers, and of course, I volunteered to touch the fish. I think it was one of the most fulfilling and fun things I have ever done. It is kind of funny to say I had fun poking a fish. During the field trip, we also got to take a tour of the facilities, both indoors and out. We got to see the dam and the fish elevator they have to help transfer fish across the dam. We viewed their egg incubation area, which was interesting to connect back to things we had learned in class. Up until this point, I knew all of the information from class. We started with what machinery is used for aquaculture itself. Then we learned about different types of reproduction in fish. Then how specific fish mated and reproduced in the industry. I had all this information about it but not a full picture of how it all related. I could tell you about the function or how it worked but not the why of it. It was cool to see everything in person and moving, and to truly understand the why of everything and how it functioned. Suddenly it all made more sense. 

 

As the class went on my professor eventually posted a blackboard announcement about a facility looking for interns and to email the person if there was any interest in the position. Well, now and again you have to take a chance in life, a leap of faith, and that’s exactly what I did. 

 

My first day was a whirlwind. I met the other intern, and we were introduced to the rest of the staff. The whole other three occasionally four people onsite. I was so shocked at how many people they had on site for such a huge facility. There was the hatchery manager, the lead biologist, two biologists, and a grounds person. Occasionally the engineer-type person was on sight as well. The hatchery worked mainly with triple tail, flounder, and the main star Cobia fish. We were running around learning a lot of information and just explaining day-to-day life at Waddell and the tasks we would have. Most of our daily tasks just added on to what was explained in class about water quality and general tasks.

 

Cobia fish were the main fish of the summer season. It is a sport fish and mainly what I worked with besides normal feedings of all the fish on sight. Every day was like a new adventure. The whole summer was breeding cobia and raising the larvae to small fry that are releasable. Day-to-day life was checking water quality both indoors and outdoors, feeding both indoors and outdoors, Depth of outdoor ponds, fertilizing ponds, and many other things. A water sample is taken three days a week to then count zooplankton. Ponds have to be fertilized if zooplankton counts are too low. Once a week we would cut the feed to freeze for all the indoor fish. We got to go fish 1-3 times a week which was always a fun experience. Every morning, we would do wellness checks on all of our indoor tanks and check for spawning. This species of fish would spawn naturally, and we would collect the fertilized eggs to measure out and begin incubation in a cone. Egg incubation is very important to learn about in the way that a fish is reared. In some cases, like the striped bass, they are first injected with a hormone to induce spawning and then have to be strip spawned like at the field trip. Without knowing that you would not be able to rear the species of fish. Striped bass are incubated in McDonald jars.

The cobia fish however are not strip-spawned they spawn naturally and then we just collected their eggs afterward.

 

That is such a stark difference that could end in a deadly error. Knowing the difference between different species how they spawn and how their egg incubation process works is the difference between being successful and not. Without learning that information none of it would be possible. For example, during my time at Waddell, one of our brood stock females got sick and ended up dying over the summer. A necropsy was performed to see possibly what had happened why did this seemingly healthy fish get sick and die? When the dissection was done, we noticed that there was blood in the ovaries and the fish likely died because it simply could not spawn on its own. The eggs began to rot inside of her and slowly killed her. Because that happened, we were not able to get any more eggs for the rest of the season after that. It's very important to know and understand and without it, you cannot be successful.

 

Harvests are their beasts. Leading up to harvest, feed was increased outdoors. We would have to take more samples of the fish in the ponds to see how big they are and how much they weigh. Harvest day starts early and takes half the day. It starts at a nice four or five in the morning to slowly bring down the ponds. The goal is to drain the pond slowly enough that fish don’t get caught up in the water flow, but fast enough to begin harvesting around 8 am. There is an oxygenator placed into the water since the aerators turn off to make sure the pond does not flip and kill everything due to anoxic water. We are trying to drain the water down to something called the basin which is a giant concrete hole that is deeper than the pond itself leading to the drain. Once the water is low enough, we start harvesting. It means netting fish into buckets to eventually weigh and put into a large mobile tank called a chariot. We do this until we get all or as many fish as possible. This is a long process that involves lots of people. For harvests, people from our sister hatchery in Charleston would come to help us out because it was such an ordeal.

 

Through my time there we released 26,000 juvenile cobia fish. It was a crazy number and above our goal for the year. It was one of the most liberating things I have done. That number was accomplished through three releases. While I was at Waddell, I think I found my life calling. I found something I love doing and that I am super passionate about. I looked forward to and enjoyed my work every day. I truly found a job that made me feel like I was accomplishing something and doing something for the world, a job that made me see and feel seen for who I am. I am very passionate about what I do, but it was nice that someone could finally see it. My boss told me about halfway through my time there that the reason they hired me was because “I wouldn’t shut up about fish.” Which was one of the funniest things I had heard. It was true though. I’m very passionate about what I do, and I love what I do. It was very gratifying to be able to share my passion with others and share my knowledge. Not only that but open up to learn more new things. I learned so many valuable life things about work and myself. I look back on it very fondly and all the exciting things I got to do like relocate sea turtle nests or visit other facilities. I got to learn about what different areas of DNR do and that you could have almost any career with DNR. I feel I truly found my calling and what I want to do. Without my prior knowledge from my class, I would not have been nearly as successful as I was. I knew the basics behind most concepts in aquaculture, so less time was needed on explanation of things from my boss and more of actually doing the work.

 

Leading back to research the mixture of both lab and field work has helped me greatly. At Waddell 3 experiments were run throughout my time there. Active research was being done as I was there that made a difference. They may not directly be related to my research at USC, but research is still research in the end and the skills you learn can apply across multiple platforms. Collecting data is a very important skill that is necessary for further research. Without that, you would not be able to continue doing research. The research that I got to take part in was seeing if we could culture flounder which is a species of flat fish which had never been done before. We looked at how to rear the young, how they spawn (which was previously unknown), how the incubation process works, and how to harvest them. Another experiment I helped with was rates of feed and juvenile cobia species. This meant we were trying to see how we could feed them to rear them inside without them dying in the same way that we rear them in ponds outside. The last experiment I took part in was trying to find a cheaper alternative way of feeding fish but still having the same growth rate we have. I got to see what active research looked like before I was even involved with it at USC. It opened my eyes to a whole new world.