Like a sturgeon
High schooler spends summer with the fishes

A Connections Web Bonus

Click on each thumbnail for a print quality image. Photos by Tom Campbell.

Kendall Huffer (left) and graduate student Anthony Kennedy cruised up and down the Wabash River this summer, looking for shovelnose sturgeon.		Huffer, a senior at Lafayette Jefferson High School earned a $3,000 scholarship that allowed her to participate in a Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources department research project.
Huffer, Kennedy and Trent Sutton, an assistant professor of forestry and natural resources, idle on the Wabash River beneath the Main St. pedestrian bridge near downtown Lafayette.		The flat-bottom boat, called the Purdue Research Vessel, cruises past Riehle Plaza in downtown Lafayette.
Electric prods on each side of the boat shock the fish to the surface, where they are netted, weighed, measured and banded before being returned to the river.		With Lafayette as the center point, Huffer, Kennedy and Sutton worked up and down a 50-mile stretch of the Wabash River this summer.
Huffer said working on the river with Sutton (left) and Kennedy was a great summer experience.		An electrically-stunned shovelnose sturgeon floats to the surface, where Huffer can scoop up the fish.
Although catching fish by electrically charging the water is illegal, it is allowed by researchers who collect and release the fish after research data is recorded.		Trent Sutton watches as Huffer weighs and measures the shovelnose sturgeon.
Huffer has been fishing most of her life, so handling the strange looking fish was not a problem for her.		Information gathered from the shovelnose sturgeon in the Wabash River by Huffer will help Sutton determine the biological attributes and population dynamics of fish.