The Great Annual Fish Count

The route from my house to Gloucester is fast becoming ingrained in my mind, as I made the trip for the third time this week in order to participate in the Great Annual Fish Count, hosted by the New England Aquarium Dive Club and the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF). My destination for the day was Stage Fort Park, where I met up with Holly Bourbon, a former Senior Aquarist at the NEAq and current Biologist and Dive Safety Officer at the MA Department of Marine Fisheries. We suited up to do our survey at one of the park’s beaches; given the rain of the past few days we weren’t expecting much in terms of visibility, but once we got a bit off shore the water cleared up to about 15′ or so of vis, enough to get some decent fish ID in. As I dove, I compared this fish count to the numerous surveys I conducted in Panama; though the objectives were the same in both cases, it was clear that doing research up here, in cold, murky water, required a distinctly different skill set and approach that that of working in tropical conditions. Though my powers of observation paled in comparison to Holly’s, I managed to spot a few well-camouflaged sculpins, as well as a number of small winter skates, a couple of lobsters, and countless hermit crabs.
Once back on shore, we met up with Bob Michaelson, the New England coordinator of the Great Annual Fish Count, delivered our findings, and helped out as dozens more divers showed up over the course of the day with their own data from sites all along the New England coast. The final tally was 119 divers conducting 140 dives and spotting 45 species of vertebrates, making this the largest fish count in the GAFC’s 8-year history. It was great to see so many divers turn out for this event and collect so much useful data. We finished the day off with a raffle, where I unfortunately did not win the grand prize trip to Bonaire, but instead ended up with a quite useful backup dive light. I’ll certainly return for next year’s Great Annual Fish Count, and not just because I want another chance at winning that trip…