Counting endangered fish is the first step towards protecting and improving their habitats. Dive in:
Keeping track to help keep native fish alive. (via P. Willink)
One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish…research biologist Phillip Willink, PhD, of the Shedd Aquarium is counting endangered and threatened fish.
From there to here, from here to there, he’s also mapping their distribution throughout Chicagoland waters.
He’s doing all this to learn “where they live, where they don’t live, and in the places that they do live, how many are there and how are they doing?”
Sometimes, the answers are surprising. Like the native banded killifish whose numbers were higher than expected.
The data will be incorporated into a statewide distribution map and used by a variety of agencies to enforce protective measures and improve the habitats of beleaguered fish—all with the hope of scratching names off the list.
Get schooled:
- Check out Willink’s work on tracking the whereabouts of endangered and invasive fish species
- See how the non-native weatherfish, which Willink is also tracking, poses a risk to native species health via USFWS
- Read a scientific overview of native Chicagoland fishes, as chronincled by the Illinois State Academy of Science
The fine print:
- This segment was produced in partnership with Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future
