UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS

 

BERKELEY   ●   DAVIS   ●   IRVINE   ●   LOS ANGELES   ●   MERCED   ●   RIVERSIDE   ●   SAN DIEGO   ●   SAN FRANCISCO                                                          ●   SANTA BARBARA   ●   SANTA CRUZ

 

 

 

 

         CENTER FOR WATERSHED SCIENCES                                                                                                                                           ONE SHIELDS AVENUE

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     DAVIS, CALIFORNIA 95616-8527

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     (530) 754-9133 or (530) 754-7250

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     http://watershed.ucdavis.edu

 

                                                                       

 

To : Diane Cummings

From: A. Peter Klimley, Ph.D.

Date: 5 September 2006

 

Re: Hire of Junior Specialist 1

 

Job Description

 

This person will join a team of biologists at the Center for Watershed Sciences of UC Davis (PI: Pete Klimley) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (PI: Bruce Mac Farlane) studying the survival and migratory patterns of central valley juvenile salmonids.  This person with scientists from both agencies will implant miniature, coded, ultrasonic beacons in the peritoneum of 270 late fall Chinook salmon and 270 steelhead trout smolts during January of 2007, 2008, and 2009.  The smolts will be raised at the Coleman Fish Hatchery in northern California.  At this time, the tagging crew will spend alternating week-long periods in northern California tagging and releasing fish into Battle Creek.   He or she assist in establishing and maintaining an array electronic monitors in Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay to detect the passage of these tagged fish during their migration out to sea.  This will be comprised of making moorings for the electronic listening stations, transporting them in a boat to sites, deploying them, and periodically returning to each site to remove the monitor temporarily from its moorings to copy its files of tag detections on to a portable computer.  The files will latter be transferred to a server, from these files will be accessible on a web page by scientists of state and governmental agencies that have tagged fish as part of the study.  The person will assist a software engineer in creating and maintaining the web site, and may work with that person to develop software that will permit the investigators to query the monitor sites for specified fish.  He or she will participate in tracking salmon smolts using a small vessel in the river or bay. Finally, this person perform analyses to determine rates of movement and survival along reaches of the river, and relate these variables to habitat features, working with scientists from NMFS and their geographic database.

 

Desired Job Skills

 

The candidate should ideally have some experience in handling and conducting research on fresh water fishes.  Preference would be given to individuals also having knowledge and experience utilizing radio or ultrasonic tracking methodologies to study the movement patterns of fishes.  He or she should have knowledge of how to organize data in a spreadsheet, apply statistics to them, and plot them graphically.  The person would be expected to present results from the study at workshops and scientific meetings.  Finally, the person should know how to operate a boat or be willing to learn how to operate one in both the river and bay environments.

 

Start Date: 1 November 2006