This week’s arrival of the other interns has brought new energy into the office and the house as well. It’s great to have others that are sharing the same experience, and by no doubt we are going accomplish so much as us four interns to work together. Handling matters at the office has become daily routine. I am anxiously looking forward to doing some more fish surveys, but the weather has plans to keep me dry, at least for now. So, for the time I have fully processed 12 lionfish dissections and found that I am dynamite at extracting lionfish otoliths. 

Lionfish are dissected for various data collection, including size for growth rate, gonads for reproduction and maturity rate, genetics for population studies and stomach contents for ecosystem impacts.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, the process entails slicing open the skull to pry out small, calcium carbonate “ear stone” structures located behind the brain in vertebrates, and used to determine the age and growth of fish – sort of, like counting the rings in a stump to age a tree. One of the stomach contents held a recently ingested dusky cardinalfish.

 

This week at Fish and Friends, Jack Grove gave a lecture about his epic mission to salvage the anchor of the Acadia. Aside from the dynamically entertaining story he gave, the message was worth taking home: if the worse happens and it looks like your anchor is going to sink, keep trying until hope brings it to the surface. I feel as there have been many times throughout my graduate school career where my project has hit a wall and would sink. But there just might come a day when it all works out as long as you are driven to achieve the goal. Jack was determined to raise the anchor after some unforeseen setbacks, but today on the shore of the island Pitcairn in the South Pacific Ocean lays the bounty of his ambition. That night at the local pub I had the pleasure to chat with Jack some more about how he made a name for himself and the work he did in the Galapagos as an ichthyologist. It’s rewarding to have this sort of mentorship now as I am deciding the rest of my life in the marine world. You can’t get the real kind of career advice from reading a textbook, but you can from real people’s perspectives – and it certainly has its place hearing it over a burger at “Sharky’s.”