Sampling events are open to the public, but the total number of participants per event is limited. If interested, please contact Julie Schumacher, Julie@littoralsociety.org or Zack Royle, zack@littoralsociety.org for more information on sampling dates and availability.
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 Winter is upon us, and while our monitoring efforts are done for the year, our work continues at Wreck Pond. Currently, Society staff is completing monitoring reports for the year. These reports document the results of our spring fyke net surveys and PIT tagging, as well as our summer and fall seining surveys. Stay tuned for information on where to access these reports once they are made available.
The Society and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) are also moving forward on the Old Mill Dam Fish Ladder Project. This project will open up almost another mile of potential spawning habitat for river herring. Scientists from USFWS surveyed the dam last month. This survey information, along with water level information collected by our citizen scientists, will be used to develop a conceptual design for the fish ladder. In the upcoming year we will finalize designs and apply for permits. We also want to remind you that February 3, 2018 will be our Citizen Science Potluck Luncheon held at the Frederic A. Duggan Memorial Building in Spring Lake from 11am to 2pm. This event is a thank you to all our citizen scientists who have worked hard this past year collecting data in and around Wreck Pond. Get your recipes ready and bring your best food for a fun filled presentation of what your data shows and how it is helping us improve Wreck Pond and the larger watershed. Please RSVP by January 12, 2018. Contact Julie at Julie@littoralsociety.org or call 732-291-0055. October 13, 2017. Friday the 13th. A most portentous day in a most ominous month. Who knew what awaited Society staff and volunteers as they set out to once again sample Wreck Pond? Was some dark menace looming in the depths of the pond ready to snatch up would be seiners? Were the ghosts of a hundred Atlantic silversides lost in seine nets of past waiting to rise up and enact their revenge? There was only one way to tell. The Wreck Pond faithful steeled themselves against the ill-omen in the air, and waded into the cool pond waters… …and caught some really interesting fish! As always, we caught an abundance of Atlantic silversides; however, mixed in the bunch (and, if not careful, easily missed because of their similar appearance) were a number of bay anchovies. We also caught stripped killifish, northern kingfish, white mullet, and several large snapper bluefish. Remarkably, we also caught one juvenile weakfish (Cynoscion regalis). This marks our first catch of a weakfish in Wreck Pond since we began sampling three years ago. Weakfish were once an abundant and popular commercial and recreation fish along the coast of NJ and in the Delaware Bay. Overfishing occurred in the 1970s and 80s and regulations were passed in the 1990s and 2000s to reduce fishing pressure and restore stocks. Unfortunately, the population has yet to rebound to its historic levels due to natural mortality from predation, competition, and changes in the environment. Weakfish are preyed upon by striped bass and spiny dogfish, they compete with Atlantic croaker, and warming waters and reduced prey species such as bay anchovy are all likely contributing to high weakfish mortality.   Juvenile Weakfish  Bay Anchovy  Bluefish
On October 6, 2017, Littoral Society staff and volunteers completed another seining event at Wreck Pond. While we did not match the excitement of last week’s sample (4 juvenile alewife caught!), we did catch a good number of species. As always, we hauled in hundreds of Atlantic silversides, as well as many northern kingfish. One mullet was caught on the Sea Girt side of the pond, along with several striped killifish. We also observed signs of “snapper” bluefish chasing and feeding on bait fish at the pond side culvert entrance, a common site the past few weeks.   Snapper bluefish caught in Baltimore County, Maryland. Photo taken by Jon Corcoran.
  The search for juvenile river herring is underway at Wreck Pond. American Littoral Society staff along with volunteers began the 2017 summer/fall fish sampling earlier this month and will be conducting sampling events weekly until October. On August 21, Society staff with help from up and coming young biologists, were at Wreck Pond for the Great American Solar Eclipse. Seine pulls were made earlier that morning as well as during the climax of coverage during the eclipse to document if there was any differences. Although many of the same species were caught at both times, staff did notice a substantial increase in the amount of Northern kingfish during the eclipse. If you are interested in volunteering for upcoming fish sampling events, please contact Zack Royle, zack@littoralsociety.org
 The Wreck Pond team was happy to conclude another year of school outreach with successful field visits from Communications High School. Over the course of two days, 80 freshman from the vocational school enjoyed participating in scientific field work stations including: seining & fish sampling, macro invertebrates, water quality, citizen scientist monitoring, and nature walks. An exciting find during these trips was the first documented juvenile river herring of the year, presumed to be an Alewife! That means adults successfully spawned this year helping the Wreck Pond Alewife population to grow. In total, American Littoral Society staff and volunteers welcomed nearly 200 students in 2017 from schools in the Wreck Pond watershed to enjoy a day of interactive field activities to further connect them to their surrounding environment. For more information on how to get students involved with the Wreck Pond project, please contact Julie Schumacher, Julie@littoralsociety.org
Another sampling event is in the books. Last week, the Society completed its third fish sampling event at Wreck Pond. We caught an additional 17 alewife bringing our total to over 30 caught for the season. We also snagged a couple of our “regulars” including white perch, white sucker, and gizzard shad (see the previous blog post). In addition, we caught one brown bullhead and one black crappie, our first captures of the year for each species. We were also able to host three budding marine biologists (or maybe ninjas) for bring your child to work day.  Fish sampling continues at Wreck Pond. Last Week, the Society completed its second sampling event. We caught an additional 11 alewife, bringing our total to 14 for the season. In addition, we caught several other fishes including white perch, common carp, mummichog, Atlantic silverside, and gizzard shad; as well as multiple blue crabs and one painted turtle.
Gizzard shad (Dorosoma cepedianum) were the most abundant species caught this past sampling event, and thus, I want to take a moment to highlight this lesser known fish:  Gizzard shad are members of the herring family. They live in freshwater lakes and reservoirs, but can also be found in slow moving rivers and streams and brackish estuaries. In general, they prefer shallow waterbodies with muddy bottoms. Gizzard shad are planktivores, feeding on phytoplankton when young and zooplankton when older. They will also feed on detritus when the zooplankton abundance is low. They are deep bodied fish with distinct rounded snouts and small toothless mouths. Gizzard shad are thus named because they possess a gizzard, an internal organ that is part of their digestive system. The gizzard is essentially a small sack filled with stones or sand (consumed by the gizzard shad) that helps break down the gizzard shad’s food. Gizzard shad typically spawn between May and June during the evening. They have high fecundity i.e. they can produce a lot of offspring. This, coupled with their fast growth rate, means that Gizzard shad can often become a large part of the ecosystem in which they live.
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