Here is Nice

This season I feel so disconnected from the people I normally work with and for; the hatchery staff. I’ve been limited to those programs and projects where I am expressly “asked” to attend to help with something because the hands, or some expertise I might have, are needed physically on site.

Today was one that fit the bill this year. A small program that I initiated six years ago, and was supposed to only be five years long… but needed one more year because the first year didn’t go so well when we looked back on the subsequent four…so it became a six year management program. Where it goes after this year is up for discussion, but we will have fulfilled my original intent, which was to clean up the genetics on a stock that had seen a lot of genetic introgression owing to unintentional use of stray fish that didn’t belong in the system.

Over the six years we have taken tissue samples from every fish collected and had them analysed at the genetics lab for system origin and, in the last three years, also for family structure/relatedness. It’s complicated when we get to spawning, because we weed out the fish that are direct strays, but then have to make judgement calls on those fish that have “some” signature of the system we are working on. We also have to make sure, through the family analysis, that we aren’t crossing siblings or half siblings.

And then, to add one additional layer of complexity, we have also collected and cryopreserved sperm from many of the males over the years and use them to inject additional genetic diversity across year classes, particularly where we have been low on good males from which to choose…needing to also ensure that no siblings, half siblings, parents, or grandparents are crossed back from stored material to their relatives.

A couple of years have been a real brain teasing exercise in serious concentration and I’ve been know to snap at people for walking in and trying to talk to me while I am sorting out buckets of eggs and creating matrices (each female split four ways to be crossed with four different boys that aren’t related in any way) that don’t violate any of our genetic plans.

It’s fun, particularly with the crew of people involved, but it gets complicated.

And I distract easily.

We got lucky this year though, particularly with the added constraints of COVID in the way. A lot of naturally spawned fish to work with, and almost no family relatedness to struggle around. The fish also had good diversity and, where we often cull up to 30% as strays, we only have two or three to cull this year. So, because of that, we didn’t need to inject preserved genetic material from previous years. All the work we’ve been doing for the past five years seems to be paying off.

So it was nice to head over to the Island for many reasons.

To get away from my work computer!

To see a few familiar faces and interact with like minded people.

To spawn some fish.

To feel a little bit of success and feel good again, about what I do.

To feel useful.

To go to the Island for the first time since January! I was thinking about this particular fact on the ferry over this morning and realized that I’ve not been away from the Island for that long since before 2003. In 2003 I started a few years of teaching at VIU (then Malaspina) and my work thereafter has always seen me on the Island on a regular basis. Until COVID.

One downside is the ferry. To get there for shortly after 9am, I needed to get up around 4:30 am. I don’t usually make reservations for the early ferries, but I have been almost caught with a wait before, and I have no idea what the ferries are like these days. The trouble with reservations is that you have to be there a half hour before the sailing; I usually skid in at the last moment…..and miss ferries sometimes because of it. I know if I leave at 5:45 am I am usually don’t even have to turn the engine off before the lane is directed to load. But with a reservation I have to leave earlier to be there earlier. Ugh.

The trip started in the blackness of early morning, the crossing was in the fog, and the Island end was gorgeous blue sky and sunshine.

On the return trip, I also had a reservation. The fall schedule is annoying because it either means I have to leave wherever I am too early in order to get home by dinner time….or I have to wait until later and not get home until closer to 8pm. I usually opt for the later so that I can get more done at the site.

But sometimes I end up in the middle…too far away to make the earlier ferry, and a long wait for the next one. Typically I call someone in Nanaimo, one of two or three friends, and meet for a beer and some conversation to catch up on life and pass the time enjoyable.

Except…COVID.

So, today when I couldn’t “quite” make the 3:30 ferry, but was left with a long stretch before I could make the 5:45 ferry, I drove the slower route, wandered down Hammond Bay Road, and stopped by Neck Point and realized the last time I’d been there was when I took one of my classes there to do some beach transects something like fifteen or sixteen years ago (!). The parking lot was full so I drove farther and stopped in at Piper’s Lagoon.

I found a bench in the sun, and sat there listening to the crickets and the wind. The ocean was calm and there were only gentle lapping noises on the beach. A few children were running into the water, squealing when they felt the cold. Tougher nuts than I!

And arbutus trees…I love arbutus trees.