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stones of a variety of sizes.
The objective was to ruffle an area the size of a basketball on the upstream side of the screen for 20 seconds to encourage aquatic life living in and around the cobbles to flow into the screen.
Identifying the capture was a challenge for some first-comers, but they had ID cards and magnifying glasses to help.
One team, composed of a teacher from the Culpeper Christian School, who plans to teach her students to monitor stream quality, Margaret Strawser, a retired CPA from Rappahannock, Beverly Hunter, RappFLOW coordinator, Kit Johnston, a writer from Madison County, and Jay Gilliam captured and identified 65 macroinvertebrates in their first sample. Gilliam said that although the objective is to get 200 over a total of four samples, the team had done well and that the river at this point was going to get a high score for biological health.
Another team managed to capture and identify 255 macro invertebrates, and their sample was used to obtain a score for the river at that point on the Thornton River.
The emphasis throughout was on safety for the monitors— including cleansing their hands as soon as possible with, for example, rubbing alcohol—and preserving the health of the captured critters. Teams were advised to count and release larger and more active animals, such as crawfish, very quickly. Any captured minnows and salamanders were to be released immediately, as they are vertebrates’. Ice cube trays and spray bottles filled with stream water made it easy to keep relevant animals wetted down and in relative comfort throughout the identification procedure. Once counted, they were released back into the river. Counting the critters
- a good score
While scoring the largest sample obtained that day (255) under Dr. Voshell’s system, the number of mayflies, stone flies, and most caddisflies were counted first, then divided by the total sample number, then multiplied by 100. The large sample showed a very healthy percentage of these flies—a very good sign. The percentage in the sample of common net spinners
94.6%