Journals 2009/2010

Beth Brocato
Exeter-West Greenwich Junior High School, W. Greenwich, Rhode Island

"Bottom Trawl Survey, Northeast Fisheries Science Center" NOAA ship HENRY B. BIGELOW September 9 - 24, 2009

Journal Index: September 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16                  17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23                  24

September 22, 2009
Happy Birthday to Me

Track the Bigelow.

Well, today is a BIG birthday for me and it was work as usual aboard the Bigelow. Many of our catches today were full of spiny dogfish. Spiny dogfish are small sharks (about 1 meter long) that tend to school in same sex group. That would make sense since each tow had a majority of either male or female sharks.

This is a spiny dogfish being removed from the hopper.

We also caught our first seahorse. This one sample is about 4 cm in length. It is a pretty rare catch for a trawler. It is also a sensitive species so the scientists attempted to keep it alive and release it after collecting its data.

Lone seahorse from today's catch

And finally, at the end of a long 12-hour shift, the galley staff made a nice birthday cake and everyone on the ship came to wish me a Happy Birthday. Thanks Bigelow staff and crew!

Me cutting my birthday cake