Fish galore: native and stocked park populations
Catching a brook trout is one thing. Collecting its DNA is an altogether different challenge. The key is to get a good grip, hold it in a plastic bag filled with water and snip a small piece of its tail fin with sterilized scissors. Stick the clipping in an ethanol-filled vial, tap the vial to make sure it’s there, note your coordinates and pack it away for safekeeping.
“Ok, little guy, you can go back in the water,” Nate Schwarz said upon releasing a squirming seven-incher, minus a tiny piece of fin, in early June.
Schwarz, on his first outing in the Adirondacks, caught four brookies in a few casts. He, Ken Murphy and Bill Beecher collected DNA samples for Trout Power on a stream east of Sagamore Lake.
“You’re contributing to citizen science,” said Murphy, a Utica physician.
Adirondack brook trout, one of the region’s few native fish species, have survived heavy fishing, habitat loss, development, logging,
