Today I went on a "field trip" to a fish hatchery. I put field trip in quotes because when most people think of field trips they think happy thoughts, good times, great memories. That's not how it went today.

We were there to learn how to spawn steelhead which are then raised in the hatchery and released for sport fishing. The process goes like this: First the females are put into a tub with electrodes. Electricity is applied until they are unconscious. They are then lifted out of the water and an 18 gauge needle is stuck into their abdomen that is attached to a pressurized airline. The abdomen is filled with air which forces the eggs out. The eggs are caught in a bread loaf pan on a table. The unconscious fish is tossed back into the water. Next a male is removed from the water. He is clubbed, in theory, to death on the floor then the sperm is milked out of him. His body is thrown out the window into a pile on the ground.

I refused to participate. The instructor, disappointed and possibly angry, said "you're going to have to kill something sometime." I rolled my eyes. I stepped outside to avoid ridicule and realized that many of the male fish lying on the ground were still alive. I told one of the hatchery workers and he came out and half-heartedly clubbed one again. It was still moving. While it may have just been postmortem nerve reflexes, it still unsettled me so I spent the next hour cutting the heads off the fish as they were tossed out the window to ensure they were dead rather than have them suffocate to death. The knife they gave me was dull and it took all my strength to cut through.

So, honestly, I don't know if I killed anything today but it still felt as bad, if not worse, than any euthanasia I've ever performed.

I've been working mostly with fish lately. I don't know if I should record their deaths. As I said about the herring, there is little ceremony or emotion involved. I don't hold their hands or look into their eyes. It just happens. However, for the sake of completeness I feel the need to mention the schools of pacific cod and halibut that were euthanized yesterday because they had been exposed to a non-native species during testing and couldn't be re-introduced to the local population. I don't know how many of them there were - I didn't count. Their bodies will be used for school children, so they can dissect them and learn about biology. I suppose it is some consolation that their deaths were not complete wastes. Perhaps a child will be inspired to learn about the oceans.

a dungeness crab with shell rot disease. it had been moved from the visitor center back to the hospital where we were trying to care for it. my co-worker came in and found it lying on its back and when she flipped it over its leg fell off.

A moribund herring, part of a school waiting in quarantine before being released into the public area of the science center. There is little ceremony in the euthanizing of a fish. It is a matter of fact procedure, part of the day, another tick mark on the to do list.

a small ground squirrel. i tried to swerve out of the way but it ran right under my wheel. i looked in the rear view mirror and it lay motionless in the road.

I am taking some time away from employment for a bit so this blog, thankfully, will not be updated for an uncertain amount of time.

a chicken that had been mauled by a dog

a cat in end stage congestive heart failure

a ferret with a golf ball sized hard mass in its abdomen