Citizen Scientists and Seth Green Volunteers - We need your help! It will be fun!

On November 26th we will be assessing Oatka Creek water quality by counting the prevalence of different types of bugs (known as macroinvertebrates) that live in the stream. A few weeks ago we placed packs of leaves into riffles, which create colonies of macroinvertebrates that trout feed on. We will remove those packs, pull out the bugs, sort them by type, count them, and put them back into the stream. Once counted, we will calculate how many are pollution tolerant and how many aren't, calculating a ratio that helps us understand pollution levels. This is a fun event for people of all ages and will benefit anyone who likes to fly fish by seeing trout food up close and in real life. This program is called 'The Leafpack Network' and is run by Stroud Water Research. More information on the organization and program can be found at: https://leafpacknetwork.org/.

Where: Union Street Parking Lot in Garbutt, NY

When: 9AM EST on Saturday November 26th - it will probably take 60-90 minutes.

What: Identify and count macroinvertebrates collected as part of the Leafpack network program. We will use this information to calculate water quality

What to bring: Dress warm. Bring waders if you would like to retrieve the leaf packs and release the counted bugs (not required). We will have some coffee and breakfast snacks