Little thread about my current work :
How to assess the impact of the passage through an hydropower plant on the physiological and health status of migratory species.
#LIFE4FISH

First because we cannot do everything only with our own (URBE), we required the help of our partner Profish Technologies "specialized in fish ecology issues and innovative monitoring techniques" https://www.profish-technology.be/en/ 

They even recorded a super video to explain their procedure when we worked together at the first experiment of the project (Video in french)

The procedure in itself is quite difficult to handle. Because you need quite very big crane to handle a very big net to catch your fish after their passage through the turbine
Here for the net

So how do we proceed?
First, we capture the fish very quickly to avoid stressing them so much. The dream team here handle everything smoothly.

After, we inject the fish through a plastic wetted tube directly into the turbine or directly into the net. The fish are after recovered by the net (Thanks to profish for some of those photos)

So you recover this 50m length net with a crane. The net is mounted here on more than 2 tons metallic frame and handled by a crane. It is quite dangerous, so everybody is well equipped.

After you recover your fish, you have to sort them into groups depending on their state: dead, injured and undamaged ones. Then, you take photos, weight and measure them and finally sample them for blood and organs after anesthesia and euthanasia

The fish are after kept in different tanks depending on their group (HPP or control), mortality is checked and the fish are sampled 24h, 72h and 144h after the experiment.

All this work (from 7 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. without breaks) is not possible without a dream team. Thanks to all my colleagues in URBE (University of Namur) for their big sacrifice, especially when water temperature is about 8°C and the ambient temperature about 10°C only.