This month's topic for nature study is fish. Because we live on an island, I thought this would be a very simple topic, but I was mistaken.
I set out to find out a list of the fish that are in the rivers of the island and also in the ocean waters near us. I found information on fishing licenses and what is sold from fisheries. I visited the local office for fishing licenses and he gave me some information, related to fishing freshwater fish. I talked to the librarians, hoping there would be a nature guide for this topic for the island. I googled. I looked through an old guide called "fishes of the Atlantic Coast" but it doesn't list fish by regions.
Finally, I gave up on making a list of all the fish found around the island and decided to focus on just a few that I found out about. The complete list will be a work in progress, as I discover more resources!
Celeste and I chose the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna for our first fish to study.
The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is found off the coast of Prince Edward Island. It's part of the tourism here, with several companies offering charters. North Lake, PEI is even known as "the Tuna Capital of the World"!
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, also called the Northern Bluefin Tuna, can get very big, more than 990 lbs (according to wikipedia)! Celeste and I watched part of an episode of Wicked Tuna. She thought it was interesting, but I would prefer to watch more nature oriented documentaries than fishing ones...
After reading about this fish, I thought some of the facts were very interesting:
I set out to find out a list of the fish that are in the rivers of the island and also in the ocean waters near us. I found information on fishing licenses and what is sold from fisheries. I visited the local office for fishing licenses and he gave me some information, related to fishing freshwater fish. I talked to the librarians, hoping there would be a nature guide for this topic for the island. I googled. I looked through an old guide called "fishes of the Atlantic Coast" but it doesn't list fish by regions.
Finally, I gave up on making a list of all the fish found around the island and decided to focus on just a few that I found out about. The complete list will be a work in progress, as I discover more resources!
Celeste and I chose the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna for our first fish to study.
The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is found off the coast of Prince Edward Island. It's part of the tourism here, with several companies offering charters. North Lake, PEI is even known as "the Tuna Capital of the World"!
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, also called the Northern Bluefin Tuna, can get very big, more than 990 lbs (according to wikipedia)! Celeste and I watched part of an episode of Wicked Tuna. She thought it was interesting, but I would prefer to watch more nature oriented documentaries than fishing ones...
After reading about this fish, I thought some of the facts were very interesting:
- they are warm blooded but are comfortable in cold waters
- they migrate back and forth from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Atlantic Ocean, sometimes several times a year
- they can retract their dorsal and pectoral fins into slots to swim faster
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| Image from National Geographic. |
We are planning on drawing a fish soon too, see this post from the Handbook of Nature Study blog. Check this post from more information about this month's topic and how to get the newsletter. I am not sure how much more we will accomplish ourselves since it is summer, but I do find the topic interesting.
I will be linking this post to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Carnival.
They have some migration! This was a great entry and I love the you didn't give up in your fish study because of lack of info. Great job sharing your tuna study...thanks for submitting to the OHC carnival.
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