New Jersey Fish
Welcome to the New Jersey Fish site, created and maintained by Zakqary Roy. This is a passion project for the documentation of NJ fish, fish diseases/parasites, and other important phenomenon. Planned for this site are identification keys, fishing guides, and pathology guides. If there's any mistakes or changes that need to be made, please email zakqaryroy@yahoo.com.
About Me
I am a New Jersey based ichthyologist, with a particular interest in fish pathology. I do not fish using rods/hooks, only nets (mostly dipnets), and have travelled across NJ for years catching and observing everything that NJ has to offer. In that time, I have caught every single documented freshwater fish of New Jersey, and even documented a new (albeit introduced) species, the Bigmouth Buffalo. Many of my favorite species in the state, such as the Bridle Shiner or Shield Darter, had little to no observations on citizen science sites such as iNaturalist prior to my adventures, and I made it my goal to change that. I also wanted to ensure that the information found online about our native fishes was as accurate as possible, and in my time studying I found several mistakes on government websites, such as: fin ray counts, size limits, locality, and sometimes even the picture used was the incorrect species. Hopefully my work will ensure that the information presented to the public is as accurate as it can be!