Tennessee River Rescue- October 4 (by Daphne T.)

The Tucker River Fellows, some members from the GPS crew team, some members of PIC (Partnerships In the Community at GPS) and other good citizens of GPS woke up bright and early on Saturday morning October 4 to participate in the Tennessee River Rescue happening all around Chattanooga. Although most of us were groggy and sleepy from a late night at the McCallie/Baylor football game, this outing turned out to be very fun! 

We picked up our trash grabbers, gloves, and trash bags from the River Rescue organizers at Coolidge park and headed towards the boathouse to pick up our boats. All of us ferried over to Maclellan Island (also known as Audubon Island) in johnboats and canoes. 

When we got to the island we all began working hard picking up the trash that peppered the ground on the small island. Some of us played music and made this not-so-fun sounding activity a great and productive way to spend a Saturday morning! Although we spent several hours on the island, we only made a dent on the surface of the all the trash that littered the island. I would enjoy going back to Maclellan Island to help save the environment and pick up some more trash. 

We accidently located a geocache ammo box full of interesting items on the island; we won’t tell you where it is, but a geocaching hunt might be a nice excuse for an outing to the island. Some items found during our trash clean-up included a toilet seat, lots of styrofoam, some tires and a 50 gallon plastic bucket with unknown original contents. We crossed paths with some boysouts enjoying fishing during a fish derby day. We also came across some people enjoying a campout on the island that is part of the blueway canoe trail system. 

Sept. 30- behind the scenes at the TN aquarium- by Amanda M.

Today the Tucker River Fellows went to the Tennessee Aquarium and met up with our friend Kathlina Alford to take a “behind the scenes” tour of the aquarium. We got a view from above the tanks and watched as someone went scuba diving! All of the water from the tanks is form our own Tennessee River (they just filter and add the salt) and the coral is made of concrete. The aquarium is careful to conserve the water they use in the tanks. 

Some fun facts we learned:

-each suction cup on the octopus is controlled separately

-spider crabs loose legs when the get scared but they grow back (we heard a story about one who was shipped and came into the aquarium with no legs at all!)

-sharks lose teeth constantly and some of them are for sale in the gift shop

-the aquarium has its own Vet Lab where they can perform surgery on any of the animals. They also have a waterproof x-ray machine. 

-they freeze food and give it to the birds so they have to work hard to get their favorite snack.

We are so glad you are reading about what we do and can’t wait to get others involved!

September 18th at TNACI (by Anna O.)

Thursday September 18, Tucker River Fellows went to TNACI propagation facility and half of us were cutting carp meat and buffalo (not the furry kind) meat off the ribs and chopping it into pieces a square centimeter big.

Freshwater buffalo 

Common carp (image from Kathlina Alford) 

 The other half was counting 52 pieces out into bags to bait the trot lines with. The trot lines are 400 feet long, have 50 hooks per line, and are used to catch Lake Sturgeon.

Sturgeon are caught in the Tennessee River in the following reservoirs: Nickajack, Chickamauga, Fort Louden, Holston/French Broad and Watts Bar. Once a sturgeon is tagged it is known as an individual and is never re-tagged. In November last year, Watts Bar and Fort Loudon were "hot spots" for lake sturgeon.