Local students help shad population
Students from four regional schools, including Chadds Ford
and Pocopson Elementary schools, spent part of last week working with the
Brandywine Conservancy to reintroduce shad into the Brandywine Creek.
Chadds Ford Elementary School third-grade teacher Sue Davis said
her class set up a small hatchery and began testing the water for acidity and
temperature even before getting the eggs Monday morning, May 3.
While the eggs were in the hatchery, students continued to
monitor the water conditions for pH, nitrates and ammonia, and began separating
nonviable eggs from those that could survive.
“We put them out in Petri dishes and [the students] had to
take little pipettes and sort them and pull out the ones that were not
healthy,” Davis said.
She explained the class could tell which eggs were good by
the color. Good ones, she said, were clear while the nonviable eggs were cloudy
in color.
She added that the project was a hit with the students.
“They liked it a lot. They thought it was exciting.
Everybody wanted turns,” she said.
Her students nurtured the eggs until they hatched Wednesday
and Thursday then released the fry into Ring Run by the Brandywine on Friday.
Robert Lonsdorf, the Brandywine Conservancy senior planner
for watershed and biodiversity, said the conservancy began studying the
possibility of reintroducing the shad in 2003, but didn’t start the actual
reintroduction until 2007. This was the first year the conservancy involved the
elementary school, he said.
“The kids bring a magical element to the project,” Lonsdorf
said. “It comes alive with kids.”
He said the idea is to bring not only ecological awareness,
but action and restoration, too. He hopes the kids can spread the enthusiasm to
friends, family and the media.
Lonsdorf explained that shad were once a staple for Native
Americans and early settlers, but that the population fell off when dams were
built to support the mills that the settlers constructed along the creek.
“The shad have not been in the Brandywine for 300 years.
Back then, there were tens of thousands of shad. … We’re lucky to be able to
restore these fish,” Lonsdorf said. “To involve the kids is just a wonderful
way of bringing it home.”
Lonsdorf harvested the roe from the Potomac River on Sunday,
May 2 and distributed the eggs to the schools Monday.
The released fry will spend the summer in the creek, growing
several inches before making their way to the Atlantic Ocean where they stay
for about four years before coming back upstream to spawn.
Other schools involved were the Tower School and Wilmington
Friends School in Delaware.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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