--- "Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney" <festuca at olywa.net> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> On Sunday Sept 3rd, between 3-7pm, Don Norman, one of my banding
> subpermittees, organized a successful banding operation on about 125
> Caspian
> Tern chicks at the ASARCO smelter site in Tacoma, Washington.
>
> Several pink/chum salmon smolts and a staghorn sculpin were found.
> We
> could have collected a lot of food samples, as the chicks unloaded
> before
> they slid down the side of the pile when we herded them, but the
> Glaucous-
> winged gulls rapidly came and ate the fish. Don was able to collect
> about a
> gallon of dried tern feces for coded wire tag examination; the colony
> is a
> few
> miles from the mouth of the Puyallup River, and a portion of coho and
> chinook
> salmon fry/smolts have been marked with small (1mm) stainless CWTs.
>

Hadn't thought of this aspect of salmon tagging. Are the tags harmless
to animals that eat the smolts?

=====
Mike Wagenbach wagen13 at yahoo.com
wagenATuDOTwashingtonDOTedu Seattle WA

"I like to get to work early, so I can discard a pet hypothesis before breakfast." Konrad Lorenz

I'd settle for Happy Hour.

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