FISH STUDY

Fish diversity varies greatly between years. We want to analyze the types of fish that withstand changes in water quality. With the information that we have received from Phil Chvala at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the fish diversity has greatly decreased compared to previous studies. The data shows more diversity in 2006 study than in 1995. At this point, no conclusions can be made about the fish diversity present in the Shell Creek.

In the summer of 2007, the fish study we started focusing more on quantity, with the summer of 2006 study mainly focused on diversity. With our new study we can determine how many of one species is in a certain site. We were interested in fish population compared to water quality.

We found that there isn’t much of a trend in certain fish found at a specific site, our findings are pretty random. In terms of dissolved oxygen site 5 was the poorest and the best was site 3. Site 5 had an average of 1.74 ppm. In comparison to the rest of the sites which had an average of 4.21 ppm. Also on July 6, 2007 we found a major fish kill at Site 5. There was a noticeable amount of dead fish floating on top of the water. We contacted Phil Chvala at the Game & Parks and he forwarded the call to DEQ for further observation. The DEQ is now investigating what caused the kill.

We changed our procedure in the 2007 study. We are still using a 15 ft seine, but now we put up a block net approximately 20 ft downstream. We did this to try and make it a more accurate survey. This helped with catching larger fish such as carp. We plan on using these procedures in the future maybe a few adjustments.