The East Hampton Town Trustees got an update earlier this month on two ongoing fisheries studies.
Mike Frisk, a professor of fish ecology at Stony Brook University, is conducting an acoustic telemetry study — a way of tracking animals by sound — of movement patterns for local fish.
“We’re able to track them again on a very fine scale, and we can get an idea of what they’re actually doing,” Dr. Frisk told the trustees at their Oct. 18 meeting. Atlantic sturgeon, for instance, are moving through the system in a migratory mode, without “hanging out” in a single location for long.
The data has been informative, he added. Nonetheless, some of the tags used to track the fish wind up lost, but have been returned by local fishermen, as many are aware of the study.
“The work here contributes broadly to the science that is being conducted for these species up and down the East Coast,” Dr. Frisk said. For this study, most of the fish are caught with a hook and line.
Scott Curatolo-Wagemann, the senior educator at the Suffolk County Cornell Cooperative Extension, has been using an 80-foot commercial fishing vessel, Bulldog, to gather migratory data on commercial and recreational fish. The study began in 2021
In 2023, Mr. Curatolo-Wagemann’s team caught 76,663 pounds of fish representing 74 different species. With each “tow,” the Cornell Cooperative Extension scientists sort, weigh, and measure the fish. The scientists then collect data on the surface and bottom water temperatures, salinity, water pressure, and conductivity.
Both studies are set to continue for one more year.
In other news, at their meeting Monday the trustees renewed water quality monitoring agreements with the Villages of Sag Harbor and North Haven.
For the Sag Harbor water quality agreement, the town trustees pledged $3,000. Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences proposed the initiative, which promotes the “health and cleanliness” of local bays and harbors.
In North Haven, the village was “not asking for a contribution,” the trustee clerk Francis Bock said, as that village planned to carry the cost by itself.
