Day five: Today I woke up at 7:00 AM. we had some breakfast and packed our lunches and met up with some water and fish technicians, Jordyn Matherly and Josh Kieffer. Jordyn started off as a youth worker for the tribe at the age of 15 in natural resources and fell in love with it and knew this is what she really wants to do. So she became a fish tech 2 and has been working there ever since, she has also worked on other reservations too. Josh also works as a fish tech 1 for water and fish, he grew up farming and has also fought fires he is currently working on his degree at the University of Idaho. After they introduced themselves to us they took us to Tshimakain creek, where they showed us what their day to day work life looks like. Their goal is to preserve the red band trout in the area and to make sure the areas are kept clean. First we did some surveying we took measurements of the creek to how deep the sediments are in the creek it was very interesting. We did that for about three hours, next we then went further down stream and had some lunch before we started our next assignment. The next thing we did was electro fishing, the goal was to catch invasive species that were overrunning the red band trout's area and tag the red band trout. Jordyn and Josh were the ones that were shocking the fish and other students and I were behind them with nets and buckets to catch them as they were shocked. The shock is not harmful and it only last a few seconds enough time for us to scoop them up with the net and put them in the buckets. We caught a lot of different kinds of fish and even a crayfish. It was very interesting, I had a lot of fun doing that. We did that for about an hour, and finished the day off with swimming in the creek which the water was very cold, but I enjoyed it. Then we made our way back to camp and I helped with making dinner, we had quesadillas which were very good, I had a long day and went to bed at about 9:45 PM. We have a science day tomorrow so that is going to be very interesting.
Day thirteen: I woke up today a 7:00 AM. Today is the last full day of the trip and we will be heading tomorrow. The first thing we did was go to the Walla Walla fish hatchery and took a tour of the facility. We met Thomas Tallbull. He is a Hatchery manager there, Thomas graduated from the University of Idaho in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in fish and wildlife, and a master's from the University of Oklahoma in 2021, he was the one giving us the tour. He showed us everything there is that happens at a fish hatchery, from the spawning pools, and where they tag the fish so they can keep track of them. Next he showed us how they separate the natural fish from the tagged fish and he even showed us some lamprey. He said that they release hundreds of thousands of fish each year, I liked the tour it was very interesting. Then after the tour we went back to camp and did some gram staining on the rest of our water samples. We did that for almost two hours, and had some lunch, then we ...
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