What lives beneath the surface of a local creek? Community members got a firsthand look in July during TCWP’s annual electrofishing and macroinvertebrate event hosted in partnership with the Ohio Native Fish Coalition and Cleveland Metroparks.
Adults and children joined TCWP staff and our partners to explore the creek and discover the aquatic life living beneath the surface. Participants got a firsthand look at electrofishing and macroinvertebrate sampling and learned how these techniques help scientists understand the health of our streams.
The survey turned up an impressive variety of fish, including northern hogsuckers (bottom-feeders that churn through the streambed searching for food), stonecat madtoms (a pollution-sensitive species that can provide valuable clues about water quality), smallmouth bass (a major stream predator and popular sport fish), warmouth (a less commonly encountered member of the sunfish family), and a rainbow trout (non-native fish stocked annually for recreational fishing).
Beyond simply seeing what was in the creek, the event gave participants a chance to connect with the aquatic life that makes up a healthy watershed and to see how scientists use these communities to better understand our streams.
A big thank-you to Cleveland Metroparks and the Ohio Native Fish Coalition for helping make this hands-on learning experience possible!