Week 8:
Bumps in The Road

July 17, 2022

It’s crazy to think that my time here is coming closer and closer to an end. It feels like it was just last week that I moved in and started working at the lab, but now I only have 2 or so weeks left! This week specifically has been all about starting the preliminary white shrimp experiments, which entails giving our new sample individuals (white shrimp) time to acclimate to their new food and pit tags. During the brown shrimp experiment, we conducted very similar preliminary tests and had few issues acclimating the shrimp to our food and pit tags, but it’s been a bit more up and down with the white shrimp. Because we’re interested in tracking their growth/mortality, it’s important that they acclimate properly before the main experiment so we know the growth (or mortality) we plan to measure is because of their varying density, not because of the tags or new food.

Outside of shrimping, I spent a good portion of this week inputting data from past trawls and seine collections into some excel sheets. As I’ve probably mentioned before, there are a variety of long-term research projects being conducted here that have been going on for decades. Currently, the seine and trawl collections are headed by Matt and Bruce, so I’ve been fortunate enough to help conduct and now work with the data from past collections. I think the biggest takeaway from working with all of the collected data for me is how quickly I’ve gotten more familiar with the scientific names of all the species of fish, crabs, shrimp, etc. If I were to be handed this task the first week I arrived, it would’ve been a bit more difficult since I hadn’t had much experience with a lot of the species found in the estuary, but now it feels good to be more knowledgeable with all of the species’ scientific names (some of them are quite the mouthful!).

This week outside of work was an absolute blast as well! It was a bit rainy during the week, but there were times when it was absolutely gorgeous weather (minus the absurd amount of mosquitos). On Wednesday and Thursday, there were some pickup soccer games out at Stables Park that I finally was able to go to. Between all of the crappy weather and work, I haven’t been able to catch a game recently, so it was nice to get out and play with some locals. One of the guys at the pickup game had an extra ticket for a Charleston Battery game, so I think I’m going to that next week, which will be fun! The Battery are a semi-pro soccer team based in Charleston who, from what I’ve heard and seen on their website, have a really cool stadium. I’ve been meaning to catch either one of their games or a Charlotte F.C.  (a professional soccer team in Charlotte, NC) game sometime this summer, so I couldn’t say no to a free ticket!

It’s crazy to think that after this week, I only have two weeks left, but it should be a pretty busy end of the summer. On top of our ongoing white shrimp experiments, next week is our monthly trawls in Winyah Bay as well, which is always cool! This specific collection includes 9 different trawling sites throughout the bay, and because they’re so spread apart from one another, it’s not really possible to complete them all in one day. The plan is to go out on Monday and Tuesday, weather permitting of course. As of right now, the forecast looks pretty good, but one thing I’ve learned to get used to is that the weather on the coast is so unpredictable!