Catalina Island Leadership Program

Phoenix Country Day School

Kelp Forest Information Links

Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuaries

Introduction:Our group of three, Kathleen, Alessandra, and Amy went to Catalina Island, the CELP program to study marine ecology. It is important to study fish and their habitat because humans can easily kill off a species of fish if is we do not know more about the fish and its habitat. We stayed on the island from October 15th to October 19th , 2007. While we were there we researched three diverse marine animals and we compared and contrasted them to each other. On our trip we took data of the water temperature, location and depth of the ocean. We saw each animal at very different places in the bay.

Research: Our research question was “Where do the fish live?” Instead of just counting random fish we decided to also specialize in three of them. Amy chose the blue-banded goby, Alessandra chose the sardine, and Kathleen chose the bat ray. This paper illustrates the comparisons and contrasts between the three animals.

Before we went to Catalina Island, we did a lot of background research on our subject to prepare ourselves for Catalina. We read books as well as the Internet when we were looking for information. When we snorkeled, we collected data of how many fish were at a specific point. To accomplish this, we took a waterproof clipboard and paper into the water. On this tablet we took note of the fish we saw and where we saw them. We also carried a camera to take with us for pictures of the marine animals that we were studying.
Bat rays live on the sandy bottom, where they eat sea urchins, crustaceans, and mollusks. They are generally solitary but they share their habitat with leopard sharks. Although the bat ray can look intimidating, they are actually shy and gentle creatures by nature. They do not have a prominent predator, but their few predators include humans and bigger fish. They are usually dark blue or black with a white underside. The bat ray’s tail and spine are poisons. They can grow up to be six feet long.

In contrast to the bat ray’s size and shape is the blue-banded goby. The life span of these small fish is only 19 months. These tiny fish are bright reddish orange with three to nine neon blue stripes. They use their bright coloration to help defend their territory. Blue-banded gobies are very territorial and protective of their eggs even though they are only up to 6 inches in length and be the width of a pencil. When a fish actually is not scared away by their colors they will swim away back into a crack or crevice. They hide to protect themselves from being eaten. Their main predator is the Kelp Bass. We did not see many blue-banded gobies because they were down towards the bottom of the cove, usually, under ledges additionally their size can make it very hard to see them.

Unlike the blue-banded goby, we observed many sardines on our snorkel. We learned about their habitats in comparison to other fish in the same area. The first thing we learned was that these fish are very abundant. The schools that she saw had over one hundred sardines that were mixed in with another type of fish called mackerel. It was hard to tell the two fish apart because they looked almost exactly the same. The sardines were constantly swimming in their schools every time we saw them. If one group of them changed direction they all followed. We also observed that they were not as common in very deep water. They didn’t just live in one type of area. They were in many different places. In comparison to the bat ray, they were further from the shore.

These fish are all diversely different, but they live in the same area, which demonstrates that biodiversity is important. The things they eat connect all these fish and the energy they get from the sun also connects all these fish. The blue-banded gobies live hiding in rocks and kelp forest while the bat ray glides along the sandy bottom. The sardines are very different from both of the fish. The sardines live in big schools all around the bay, including the kelp forest and the sandy bottom.

Conclusion:It has been interesting learning about all of these marine animals. If we were able to go back to Catalina again, we would take note of more temperatures and salinity and to go into more detail about each habitat where each fish lived. The other key thing we would research would be looking at a broader range of fish.