Migration — It’s risky business!

I’m Bethany Holbrook, and I work at our New York Field Office. You’ll be hearing from me every week! Stay tuned for tales from the great state of New York.

Have you ever wished you were a bird, just to know what it would be like to truly fly? Do you like to “migrate” from the cold New York winters to warmer southern weather?

If you answered yes, then you would have enjoyed spending the day with me and over 270 sixth graders who learned about bird migration at the Cortland Conservation Field Days at the end of September.

The event pulled in 15 different conservation educators to prepare 20-minute programs for student groups at the 4H Camp Owahta in McGraw, N.Y.

Students from 10 Cortland County schools spent the day cycling through stations listening to presentations about topics like wetlands, food, wildlife, forests, orienteering, composting, and much more.

At our New York Field Office station, students learned about the “helps and hazards” associated with migration in an activity called the Great Migration Challenge.

Students thought and acted like birds by following a series of cards that took them on a migration route of their own.

That’s me, Bethany, giving the Great Migration Challenge activity instructions. Credit: USFWS

Here’s how it worked:

The Great Migration Challenge activity instructions. Photo credit: USFWS

• Each student selects a partner and a bird as which they’ll act.
• Students start their migration journey by rolling a die to direct them to one of the 24 stations set up around the room, each with a different activity card. Each card explains a scenario, and then directs students to the next stop on their migration journey. One card read, “You get tangled in fishing line and can’t eat. You are weak from hunger. A wildlife rehabilitator cuts the line and feeds you. Hop on 1 leg in a circle, count to 40, then move ahead 4 stations.”
• Students continue selecting cards and moving to the appropriate station until they reach a station that either kills the bird (disease, guns, cats, etc.) or sends it to the finish after reaching the migration destination.
• After, students rejoin the rest of the class and discuss the factors that helped them on their migration journeys, as well as others that were hazardous to their journeys.

The kids enjoyed the program because they were able to jump, run, and act silly, while the teachers enjoyed the program because it provided students with a hands-on way to learn (and get their energy out!).

Students picked one of the bird cards, and when they were finished with their journey, an instructor helped fill in the results chart shown here.

Interested in the activity? Find the instructions and all necessary materials in the attached PDFs from the Flying Wild Educator’s Guide. Visit the Flying Wild website to find additional resources.

Great Migration Challenge materials:

• Activity cards (PDF/105K)
• Activity instructions (PDF/10019K)
• Instructions poster (PDF/67K)
• Results chart (PDF/56K)
• Item list (PDF/44K)

Sturgeon stocking success!

Juvenile lake sturgeon raised at the Genoa National Fish Hatchery in Wisconsin. Credit: USFWS

I’m Bethany Holbrook, and I work at our New York Field Office. You’ll be hearing from me every week! Stay tuned for tales from the great state of New York.

Cold weather, cloudy skies and chilling winds didn’t shake the spirit of fish enthusiasts at the Greenbelt Park Boat Launch in Ogdensburg, N.Y., last Tuesday.

The launch was packed with reporters, interested locals, several resource agencies, and 11,000 juvenile lake sturgeon ready to be released into the wild. All were present for the annual sturgeon stocking, a program led by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) with supportive funding from the State of New York and our agency’s Fish Enhancement, Mitigation, and Research Fund.

You could feel the heightened excitement as hatchery trucks from pulled into the boat launch parking lot: the end to a 1,000-mile journey from the Service’s fish hatchery in Wisconsin, where all 11,000 sturgeon were raised. Reporters were busy talking to biologists, spectators were busy snapping pictures, and the truck drivers were busy prepping the fish and the nets for the release.

The Service’s Genoa National Fish Hatchery truck and NYSDEC Oneida Fish Hatchery truck. The trucks had 3 or 6 compartments that are like giant coolers with thousands of fingerlings in them. Credit: USFWS

Biologists started by transferring approximately 3,000 fingerlings from the Service’s truck to the NYSDEC Chateaugay Fish Hatchery truck. One by one, biologists would scoop a large net (capable of holding 300-500 fingerlings) into the giant coolers holding hundreds of gallons of water and thousands of fish, and transfer them to a cooler on the other truck.

From here, the NYSDEC truck would travel to six other locations on three separate rivers while our truck would release 7,000 fingerlings, net by net, into the St. Lawrence River at the boat launch. Additional fish were raised at the NYSDEC Oneida Fish Hatchery in Constantia, N.Y., and were released in Cayuga Lake and the Genesee River in mid-October.

Transferring about 3,000 fish from the Service’s truck to the NYSDEC truck. Credit: USFWS

Fish from the Service’s truck are transferred to the tanks in the NYSDEC truck. Credit: USFWS

Service biologists took a sample of 50 fingerlings and measured their weight to find an average. Credit: USFWS

Service biologists took a sample of 50 fingerlings and measured their length to find an average. Credit: USFWS

Seven thousand fingerlings are released from the truck into the St. Lawrence River, one net at a time. Credit: USFWS

From Ogdensburg, the Genoa National Fish Hatchery truck stopped at the St. Lawrence Power Project in Massena and released the remaining 500 fingerlings below the dam.

The Service’s Genoa National Fish Hatchery truck at the St. Lawrence Power Project in Massena, N.Y. Photo Credit: Tom Brooking

The NYSDEC hatchery truck left Ogdensburg and traveled to the Pine Ridge Campground in Constable, N.Y., where another 500 sturgeon fingerlings were released in the Salmon River.

Students from the Akwesasne Freedom School were present at the site to help with the release and receive a hands-on lesson about lake sturgeon.

Students were able to hold the fingerlings in a touch tank set up at the site, and also help biologists with weight and length measurements for several fingerlings.

NYSDEC fish biologists placing fingerlings in buckets for students to release into the Salmon River. Credit: USFWS

Students releasing buckets of fingerlings in the Salmon River at the Pine Ridge Campground. Credit: USFWS

Touch tank for students to hold the sturgeon fingerlings. Credit: USFWS

Students took turns measuring the length and weight of the fingerlings. Credit: USFWS

After leaving the Pine Ridge Campground, the NYSDEC truck made another stop along Route 37 in Fort Covington to release an additional 500 fingerlings in the Salmon River. From there, the truck traveled to Brasher Falls and Brasher Center to release 1,000 fingerlings at 2 locations on the St. Regis River. Next, the NYSDEC hatchery truck drove to Raymondville and finally reached the end of its journey in Massena Springs to release another 1,000 fingerlings at 2 locations on the Raquette River.

One of our biologists, Scott Schlueter, releasing sturgeon in the Raquette River in Massena Springs. Credit: USFWS

The fingerlings were four months old and measured approximately 4-6 inches in length. I was amazed to see how calm the fingerlings were when handled; they would allow you to pick them up and hold them without much resistance. The intimidating sharp-looking bony scutes on their backs weren’t sharp at all, but instead provide the juveniles with great defense against predators, boosting their survivorship rate.

Sturgeon have a hard, spiny exterior, but their bony scutes along the top and sides of their skin are not as sharp as they appear. This protects them from predators as they feed on the bottom of the river. Credit: USFWS

The sturgeon stocking program has proven to be extremely effective, as we are just starting to find young wild sturgeon in stocked areas, a sign that indicates successful reproduction of stocked fish in past years. With continued commitment from resource agencies in stocking efforts, we can hope to see more of this prehistoric species in New York waterways as the program continues.

From left to right: Doug Aloise (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), Don Meisner (FISHCAP), Scott Schlueter (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), and Douglas Carlson (NYSDEC). Credit: USFWS

Rattling support for the eastern massasauga

Eastern massasaugas are small snakes with thick bodies, heart-shaped heads and vertical pupils. Averaging two feet in length, adults are gray or light brown with large, light-edged chocolate brown blotches on the back and smaller blotches on the sides. Populations of this snake have declined so much that it is now necessary to work to conserve the massasauga, a secretive, docile snake. This venomous rattlesnake relies on its camouflage coloration to hide. Credit: USFWS

Three years of research, more than $60,000 in funding, and continual habitat manipulation is the secret to resurrecting a degraded swamp in New York into basking habitat for one of the state’s slithering residents.

The eastern massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) is listed as endangered by the state of New York and is a candidate for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. In the meantime, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues working to recover the species.

The massasauga lives in wet areas made of peat layers from years of decomposing plants. The layers hold water like a sponge, with new plants growing on each layer. Just two swamps in the Empire State support the species, but one has been so severely degraded that few massasaugas can actually survive there.

Two gravid females basking. Notice the plants are low to the ground and the woody shrubs have been cut. Credit: Noelle Rayman/USFWS

Check out other stories of endangered plant and animal conservation in the Northeast – We’re sharing them throughout the year!

Over the years, the swamps have been ditched, drained, and burned, significantly affecting the snake’s habitat. One of these swamps burned in 1892 during an intense wildfire and gradually converted to woody shrubs and mature trees. Gravid (pregnant) female massasaugas could no longer use it, as they need an open canopy that allows them to bask and maintain a high body temperature for their developing young.

To return the swamp to functional basking habitat, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has cut, burned, and applied herbicides to suppress the growth of tall vegetation and create an open tree canopy. With grant funds awarded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in 2011, the DEC has removed shrubs on 32 plots totally just under one acre, thinned an additional 2.5 acres, and clear-cut 10 acres. … Did the habitat work help? Find out by reading the rest of the story here!