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* 3 Minute Fishwheel Video

Huge Student Photo Album

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Rapids Student Data Collection

 The name given to an effort to teach students about fisheries technician work and get data collected on issues important to fishermen at the same time. This is Rapids Research Center at it’s best.

     This project has been an extension of Rapids video fishwheel monitoring since 2001. During the first years, video project operation and data provided much of the focus of the students. Since then the project has taken on it's own valuable data collection by taking sex, length, girth, weight, Ichthyophonus, and fall chum ID data on approximately 1000 subsistence Chinook, 1000 chum salmon plus whitefish species info each year.
     Major funding for the first five years of operation was provided by the USFWS Office of Subsistence Management. Much equipment and resources available through the funding of the fishwheel video project by the Yukon River Panel, and donations and loans from private individuals, YRDFA, local schools and tribal organizations have also kept this project alive. The project lost it’s major funding after 2005, however the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association funded a reduced data collection effort that was very successful in 2006. In 2007 Yukon River Panel funding through an ADF&G/YRDFA project plus Rapid Research Center funds again kept the project alive. Since 2008 AYK Sustainable Salmon Fund and AK Sustainable Salmon Initiative money have funded expanded research through 2013.
Thank you OSM, YRDFA, ADF&G, Yukon River Panel, AYK SSI and AKSSF

7 Years of Student Size, Sex and Disease Data on Chinook Salmon Below

Data sets of yearly king salmon sampling from 2004 to 2010 (weights, lengths, sex and Ichthyophonus disease rate) taken in the subsistence/commercial fishery around the Rampart Rapids (3/18/2011 edition)
 2004 - 2010 Rapids Student Data Collection Raw Data.xls

Past Student Project Reports 2001-2006

See these reports for past Chinook sex, length, girth and weight info. Also Ichthyophonus and flesh condition/color (plus pictures)

 2007 Rapids Student Data Collection Report.xls

  Rapids Student Data Collection, 2006 pdf

 Tanana Conservation Outreach 2005 Final report

 Tanana Conservation Outreach 2004 Annual report

  Tanana Conservation Outreach 2001 - 2003 Final report

Meta Cercarial Trematode

     In 2003 this project identified a white spot that was found on some chum and many whitefish hearts simply as “surface white spots” in order to distinguish them from Ichthyophonus (ICH) spores which they were externally similar to. These spots were often mistaken as ICH by many fishermen and the fish sometimes discarded unnecessarily for this reason. While this important information (that is was not ICH) was voiced around the local area and on YRDFA teleconferences it was not until 2005 that the spots were finally identified by name by Joe Sullivan (YRDFA) and Simon Jones (DFO Canada) as meta cercarial trematode, a fluke and harmless to both humans and the fish. As you can see in the video the fluke does not penetrate into the meat of the heart as does ICH but lies just under a thin membrane. So far this has been the only “white spot” seen with any frequency, on fish hearts in this section of the Yukon River, that could be mistaken for ICH.
     Below a picture on left and video on right.

left click to open or right click and select save target as
                                 2.11 MB wmv
       

Rapids Student Project Photo Album

(even bigger photo album under on left)