Article excerpt from Wisconsin Sea Grant
Some people revel in the dog days of summer, but for a dozen aquaculture interns, the season was all about fish.
In partnership with Wisconsin Sea Grant and funded through a grant from the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, the interns were stationed at aquaculture facilities across the state, working alongside mentors to get hands-on experience raising and caring for fish. According to Wisconsin Sea Grant food-fish coordinator Sharon Moen, who led the project alongside aquaculture specialists Emma Hauser and Dong-Fang Deng, the purpose of the internships was to build awareness of fish farming and offer training opportunities for young people.
“We couldn’t be happier with the way this first-time program unfolded,” said Moen. “The students and mentors gained so much during a short 10 weeks.”
Raising fish was not the only new skill the interns acquired. They learned how to manage projects, work on a team, and — importantly — embrace the many utilitarian wonders of PVC pipes and power tools.
Among the aquaculture facilities across the state, undergraduate interns worked with Kyle Freimuth, a graduate student at UWM School of Freshwater Sciences, at Northey Farms in Deerfield, Wisconsin, a fish farm that uses both outdoor ponds and a recirculating aquaculture system to raise yellow perch.
Freimuth got a crash course in farm management. He developed a system for interns to track daily water quality, allocate tasks, and communicate with the farm owner. “I feel good about the work,” said Freimuth. “I was able to see all the little things that we were able to do to better care for the fish.”
Another set of interns kept busy learning about fish care and nutrition in the lab of Wisconsin Sea Grant aquaculture outreach and extension specialist Dong-Fang Deng. Interns worked on various tasks, including cleaning tanks, sorting fish, and pursuing individual projects, which ranged from the effects of microplastics on fish growth to incorporating novel ingredients like black soldier fly oil and soy cake into fish food.