I felt buoyed by the enthusiasm students had for the topic, for their questions, their discussions on conservation and careers and sources of hope.
I recently gave a series of science communications lectures, workshops and classroom talks at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Photo © Dana Zane / TNC Photo Contest 2019 A Little Stream Somewhere in New York Wondrous creatures to seek out and capture. Crayfish, water skippers, salamanders, minnows, hellgrammites. In those days I explored more with a dip net and bucket (or just my hands) than a fishing rod. The miracles just kept coming as I poked around central Pennsylvania streams. How could that little black squiggly blob turn into a jumping frog?
And yes, by then I knew the tadpole-frog story, but seeing it? It was as if that stream could summon magic. Later that summer, my dad suggested we check the creek to see if any tadpoles survived.Īs I sneaked the ledge, a little frog leaped into the water. We delivered it to the trickle of a stream that ran through my grandparents’ property. We decided to launch a rescue operation, as I retrieved a Kool Aid cup and filled it with water and tadpoles. “Tadpoles,” he said as he bent over the pond. Why Staying on the Trail Is Bad for Nature.50 Fish, 50 States: A Conservation Journey.I found a puddle in a gravel road, jam packed with tiny, black, wiggling objects. While other kids played baseball at a family picnic, I poked around the field’s edges. I was five or six, barely older than my own son currently is. Photo © Ben Herndon Tadpoles in a Puddleįor me, this ever-flowing current that runs through my life began not with fish, but frogs. 6-year-old Eli Jones, holds a baby snapping turtle. After all these years, I visit running water and I’m a curious kid again. The cutlip minnow has been swimming in streams I’ve poked around my whole life, and this is my first meeting. And, less wonderfully, it has a habit of biting out other fish’s eyes. It builds its nest in a style more commonly associated with birds. It’s also a species with some truly peculiar habits. A closer look reveals a bizarre little fish. At first glance, I suspect many anglers would dismiss it as a “chub” and continue fishing without a thought. Channel your inner 10-year-old and go poking around a little brook, and wonders await. But North America’s waters contain a plethora of fascinating fish, most of them unheralded and even ignored. When conservationists mention fish diversity, chances are they’re talking coral reefs or the Amazon Basin. Even if you fish, even if you consider yourself a curious naturalist, chances are you’ve overlooked your local freshwater fish. That nondescript stream you pass every day on your commute to work? I bet it contains fish that would surprise and amaze you. states – and to use each adventure as a means to explore conservation, the latest fisheries research and our complicated connections to the natural world. I’m on a quest to catch a fish in each of the 50 U.S.