Day One: the Rangia Clam

My first day on the job, I woke up at five in the morning to get ready for the office. When I left the house I was excited, but by the time I got there, I was exhausted. The last three months spent studying for AP tests and finals had not prepared me for the four hilly miles in the summer heat. I somehow made it... even a little early.....which gave me time to catch my breath before my first day officially started at seven in the morning.  What a day it was! My mentor, Andy Ford, immediately put me to work helping him and my other mentor, Jennifer Grunewald, get the boat ready for the trip. Today I was helping them contribute to an international endeavor—not bad for the first day.

            Some researchers from Russia with the Papanin Institute for Biology of Inland Water, in a partnership with the Columbia Environmental Research Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, in Columbia, MO were looking at a species of Rangia clam that was expanding into the Baltic Sea. They thought it might be the common Gulf Coast variety Rangia cuneata, but to know for sure they would need some specimens for genetic analysis. So Catherine Richer with USGS called Paul Johnson, with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, to help collect some specimens. He is a bit far away from the coast, and needed our help.  So we packed up the things we would need and went down to Mobile Bay to collect some. We departed from the office around 7:30 and drove down to Meaher State Park to launch the boat and collect the eighty individuals that were requested. I was a bit nervous because I had never been on a boat bigger than a canoe before, but decked out in my new water boots and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteer hat, I was ready to try it out.

We launched the boat, (a process in which I was unfamiliar) and once on the water, Jennifer brought out the GPS and showed me how to work it.  We were not exactly sure where the Rangia were going to be, but Andy had a pretty good idea. So, he navigated us to a mud flat area in the Upper Mobile Bay along the right descending bank approximately a half mile south of I-10. We dropped anchor and hopped out of the boat into the shallow, but murky water choked with floating algae.  We were lucky that this area was absolutely choked full of Rangia clams. All we had to do was bend over and dig our hands into the muck, and we would come up with handfuls of them. We quickly collected more than the requested eighty clams.  As we collected our samples, we saw a curious visitor.  An alligator approached us to see what we were doing in his territory.  After observing this amazing creature, we decided to take ninety individuals back with us.

           When we returned to the office, Jennifer showed me how to clean and package the clams so they would get to their destination alive and ready for processing. We did not have enough room in the foam shipping box for all the clams, so we only sent eighty-four and returned the rest back into the Bay. Afterwards, we had a lot more time than expected.  So until it was time for me to go, Jennifer gave me a book about the Fishes of Alabama to familiarize myself with some fish taxonomy and identification to prepare for the big fish sampling trip that they had planned in the Buttahatchee River for the week of June 15^th.