ONEONTA - The Dave Brandt Chapter of Trout Unlimited will explore the science behind healthy lakes and cold-water streams at its monthly meeting Monday, Sept. 14, at the Sixth Ward Athletic Club.
The meeting begins at 7 p.m. and will feature Taline Almasian and Ciara Gunderson, graduate students entering their second year in SUNY Oneonta’s Lake Management master’s program.
Almasian and Gunderson are developing management plans for Weiden Lake in Narrowsburg and Hunt Lake in Corinth, respectively. Their work includes studying aquatic plant communities and their distribution, macroinvertebrate diversity, fish populations and changes in lake ecosystems.
The students also have gained field experience surveying streams and conducting long-term monitoring to assess the health of cold-water waterways in the Catskills. Both have worked on Trout Unlimited stream restoration projects aimed at improving and reconnecting waterways to provide safe passage for fish.
Their presentation will examine how lakes, streams and connected waterways function as ecosystems and why maintaining those connections matters to fish populations. They also will discuss what a typical day in the field looks like, from collecting data to understanding how individual observations fit into a broader picture of watershed health and conservation.
The presentation is open to anglers and others interested in the health and management of Catskill waterways.
Refreshments will be served following the presentation, along with the chapter’s monthly raffle, which will feature prizes left over from the Grand and Glorious Fall Fair.
For more information, contact chapter Co-President Steve Eichler at 607-643-1516 or sefranklinmtn@yahoo.com or Co-President Tom Trelease at 607-434-7211 or tomtrelease@gmail.com
