Join us to enjoy rivers at these in-person and virtual gatherings. Engage with CRC’s efforts to restore, protect, and enhance our waterways! Events are added throughout the year and revised as needed.
Volunteer Opportunity: Migratory Fish Monitoring
June 18, 2023 - July 17, 2023
Become a community scientist! Help us collect data needed to learn more about diadromous migratory fish populations in tributaries of the Connecticut River.
Volunteers can join us and walk rivers and streams to document sea lamprey nests and help fishery biologists capture sea lamprey at dam sites and truck them above impassable dams to otherwise off-limits habitats. Monitors throughout the watershed are surveying selected streams and rivers in June and July looking for the presence of sea lamprey in the water by finding their nests.
Their nests can be hard to spot, but once you’ve identified a few you won’t have any trouble finding them. Using their suction-like mouths, lampreys group surrounding rocks and pebbles together, in a round/oval formation. In the center of this formation is what is called the “egg pit”, a depression in the river bed ranging in diameter size of 12 to 20 inches, where the eggs are deposited. Near the center of this formation, in the pit, you might also find a single rock, called the “attachment rock” where sea lamprey hold on to while spawning. Down stream of the egg pit, you’ll find the “tailspill”, a pile of rocks and pebbles build by the lamprey to “catch” the eggs, and block them from flowing downstream. Sea lamprey nests can be found in depths ranging from 1 foot to 5 feet.
Migratory Fish Monitoring Locations:
All surveys take place from 10am-1pm.
Bellows Falls, VT: Thursday June 29th
Hinsdale, NH: Monday July 3rd
Walpole, NH: Thursday July 6th
Westmoreland, NH: Friday July 7th
Montague, MA: Monday July 10th
Greenfield, MA: Wednesday July 12
Lebanon, NH: Thursday July 13
Claremont, NH: Monday July 17