Emerald Shiners in Niagara River

While water testing at the Ontario Street Boat Launch and North Squaw Island on Wednesday, March 21, fellow intern Chris Murawski and I observed massive schools of Emerald Shiners congregating near the surface of the river. A member of the minnow family, the emerald shiner grows to about three and a half inches long and has a distinctive emerald sheen on its back. They can be found in large, deep lakes and rivers from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and they generally travel in schools. Given their abundance, they are often used as bait fish. The shiners in this photograph are actually under a thin layer of ice in Black Rock Canal. There were hundreds of gulls in the area who looked like they really wanted to peck through that ice . . .