I think that it will take a controlled study such as done with pirate perch to figure out what swampfish do. So the gauntlet has been thrown down to those skilled aquarists. Do it!
Fritz
what are the chances to get the state to support a study on these guys? if that would be of interest to the state who should I contact? would Chief Robert Curry be a good starting point or is there someone else that I should talk with?
I am by no means a certified biologist in means of the word biologist. However I would be interested in doing a study with someone that is and knows all the details that need to be kept track of.
Regarding the stream, is it a seasonal drop? What's upstream from it? How many years have you noticed this?
This drop in the water level is to be expected to some extent due to heat and natural evaporation, however the last two years have been much hotter and dryer than normal. The creek is feed from a rather large swamp that always has water in it but there are some places that will hold water and others that dry up. The creek is normally around 5 foot deep at the deepest point, but for the most part it is only about 2 foot or so deep. When the hot dry weather comes the shallower parts will dry up and lock pools up, the longer we go without rain the more it drys up.
The first year that I sampled this creek was the summer of 2006, then I built my house on the property and have been playing in it ever since. The summer of 2006 the creek never dried up to a point you could walk from one side to the other without getting your feet wet. Then 07 and this year both it dried up so much that not only could you walk across it, you could also build a sand box with the dried up sand from the middle of the creek.
The weather on the internet says that we should be getting some rain sometime in the comming week, hopefully this will change the water condition and help out the remaining fish.
If it gets low enough I will looking to get the bowfin and the gar that I keep seeing in there and moving them into a pond that is near by.
I was gone for part of the evening and when I got home, to my suprise the swampfish was out swimming around which I had not seen it doing before. The times I have seen it before it was just sitting there and not moving for anything, this time it was swimming about mid water level. A nice sight to see, I think it is really healing up to a point of checking out its new home.
I will keep all updated on my one lonely swampfish.
Pat (NC)