Quarry Curiosities, Part 4 - Science Convenes

Or, "Life below the Surface "

Looking into the quarry, June 2018

The birds had proven it, and I could see fish swimming in the quarry waters, but what were they and how did they get there?

Babson Farm Quarry, c. 1910
Photo from the Barbara Erkkila collection, Cape Ann Museum

The watery paradise had been a desolate open-pit mine a century ago.

Dr. Richard Webster stocking trout, c. 1958
Webster family photo.

After purchasing the abandoned water-filled quarry Dr. Richard Webster envisioned it as the centerpiece of recreational Pitcairn Park. He stocked it with trout, which may or may not have survived to sporting size.

Chris Leahy and Eric Hutchins

Cape Ann naturalist Chris Leahy warmed to the idea of making a fish survey of the quarry. He recruited to the project native Rockporter Eric Hutchins, a Habitat Restoration Specialist for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The EPA New England Regional Dive Team

To get to the bottom of it - possibly sixty feet down in the cold waters where trout might live - he invited scuba divers from the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Chris angling

The survey utilized diverse tools of inquiry.

Phil Colarusso making his entry

The EPA divers came because of past ecological collaborations with a colleague of Chris in the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Team leader Phil Colarusso summarized their goals. "We try to give our team a wide range of experience. It's a great opportunity whether we see fish or not. It's different from what we normally do. I knew that it was a logistical challenge, good risk-management training. And it's for basic biological curiosity. So it checked all the boxes for us."

Eric and Chris inspecting the minnow catch

Probable Banded Killifish

The minnow trap brought in, not surprisingly, minnows. Almost all the diminutive fish that squeezed through the small trap opening proved to be Banded Killifish, an abundant native species. We relayed photos of the much larger fish speared by the Green Heron to Karsten Hartel*, co-author of Inland Fishes of Massachusetts, who identified it as a Golden Shiner, also classified as a minnow but one that commonly grows to five or six inches in the wild.
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* Karsten Hartel is the retired Curatorial Associate in Ichthyology at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Golden Shiner

Karsten was not surprised that our collective efforts produced these two species of minnow. The escape or release of fishermen's bait may partially explain their dispersal to previously unpopulated water bodies. Furthermore, as Eric hypothesized, when Dr. Webster introduced the trout he likely also added minnows as a food source for them.

The scuba divers' visibility was greatly restricted by algae clouding the water. They did also observe minnows near the surface but could not confirm any species swimming at depth. Eric ventured that trout populations would have been unlikely to sustain themselves in the quarry for lack of the feeder streams critical to their reproduction needs. 


Aspiring biologists inspecting the minnows

The fish survey brought out the boyish enthusiasms of all us participants and gave Chris an educational opportunity that recalled his programs with Mass Audubon.

Kingfisher

From his perch on a quarry ledge a Kingfisher conducted his own survey of prospects beneath the surface.

We were all aware of one more quarry inhabitant that had not materialized this particular day.

Next week: The American Eel