A Fisheries biologist copes with the shutdown by drafting his kids as research assistants

A Fisheries biologist copes with the shutdown by drafting his kids as research assistants

Source: CBC Radio

9/11/2020

A Fisheries biologist copes with the shutdown by drafting his kids as research assistants

Their cottage lake was a research site and the three young boys caught fish and collected data

The COVID-19 pandemic sunk a lot of research plans this summer. Fisheries biologist Steven Cooke and his students from Carleton University had trips planned to gather data on fish health from sites around the world. But Cooke was able to come up with an alternate plan that was outside the box, but inside the bubble.

He decided to grab the kids and go fishing - but not recreationally

Cooke and his kids turned their summer getaway into a productive scientific endeavour. The three boys were put to work in their little boat on their cottage lake helping dad tag fish and gather data.

Over 800 fish later, they are still at it. So far there hasn't been a mutiny, there was only one man overboard.

Steven Cooke joined Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald to talk about his summer research.

What was your summer plan before everything changed?

We study wild fish in the wild and so to do that, we head out across the countryside. Some of that work is local -- in and around the national capital region -- but much of it is across the country. We've had long-standing research programs in British Columbia studying the migration biology of salmon. We do work in Europe. We had plans to do work in Denmark studying the migration biology of some of the salmonids over there.

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