Last week of work went by quite quickly, being only a 3 day week. I have successfully put together this round chamber which will be put to the test this week with the fish and I will finally get to work with some data. I did get to go out onto the rafts and test my fish catching skills-- they are fast little buggers! I am now responsible for feeding 12 hapuku fish and running my experiments. No fish will be harmed thankfully! I also got to set up a whole new experiment involving fish waste and the resulting consumption of it by mussels (they have green lipped mussels down here which I've been told are very good). Now I get to the dorky science bit- analysis of the mussels stable carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures can provide information on what they eat (ie fish waste). The question posed in this experiment is to see how far a fish farm would have impact on the native mussel species. Farmed fish have different isotope signatures because they're being fed a different food than what they would be eating in the wild. So for this experiment, there will be 4 different 'groups' if you will of water coming into the system- one with seawater from the bay, unfiltered, one with seawater from the bay filtered, one from the fish tank holding the farmed hapuku, and one a mix of seawater from the farmed hapuku tank and the bay. - end dorky science bit. Should be interesting!
I got a chance to escape the city on Saturday to Kaitoke Regional Park which involved a train and bus ride to the Upper Hutt area, which is considered a suburb of Wellington. Lovely hiking- got to see the Hutt river, and hiked for about 3 hours along a ridge trail that overlooked the Hutt valley. Great trees here, plus some sheep, cows, creepy bugs, and great flowers! Very fun to get out of the city for a bit. Quite refreshing.
Friday I treated myself to a trip to Wellington Zoo and got to feed some red pandas! Cutest things ever. They get fed grapes/apples/bananas and go crazy for them. The cutest thing was when they squeeze the grapes slowly with their head thrown back so the juice drips down their throat. Their faces are so precious. And their paws....fuzzy on the bottom! Doesn't get better than that. They've got some sharp nails though thats for sure. I wanted to take one home so bad!
Having such a great time. miss you all!
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