Business & Tech

Tropical Fish in Oyster Creek Discharge Canal Find New Homes In Area Aquariums

Cownose rays would not have survived the winter, plant spokeswoman says

 

Representatives of several East Coast aquariums made stops in Lacey Township recently to harvest tropical fish, including cownose rays.

Oyster Creek Generating Station periodically has aquariums come down to its discharge canal to collect fish that made a pit stop at the nuclear plant while migrating to warmer water, spokesperson Suzanne D’Ambrosio said.

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“We’ve partnered with Jenkinson’s Aquarium and Adventure Aquarium in Camden to harvest any fish that would interest them for their facility,” she said.

The nuclear plant uses water to run through and cool the plant, D’Ambrosio said. The water then comes out of its discharge canal warmer than the ambient bay temperature.

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“It tends to attract tropical and subtropical fish as they’re migrating, particularly in the late summer and early fall,” she said.

The recent visit garnered butterfly fish, crevalle jacks and pipe fish.

“What they confirmed for us when they were out there is that we had a school of cownose rays,” she said. “We had seen them in our discharge canal recently but we weren’t exactly sure what types of rays they were.

“They’re beautiful sea creatures,” she said. “They found our conditions quite favorable and decided to take a pit stop there. New Jersey is not where these rays belong as we get into winter water.”

The cownose rays are similar in appearance to stingrays and range in size from wing tip to wing tip, she said. Some were more than 3 feet wide. The rays are heavy schooling fish and migratory, most likely heading south to warmer waters.

Aquarist Angela Pizza from Jenkinson’s explained that the rays had to be harvested to survive. The ambient water away from the plant has become too cold for them to make it back to their normal habitat.

Approximately 200 cownose rays were harvested over the course of four visits. In addition to Jenkinson’s and Adventure Aquariums, employees from the Atlantic City Aquarium, the Long Island Aquarium and the Pittsburgh Zoo came to Oyster Creek.

D’Ambrosio, a diver in her spare time, called the process “fascinating” and “gentle.”

The aquarium staff would dip their nets into the water, catch the rays and put them in a tank on their boats. The boats would then travel to Oyster Creek’s dock where they would transfer the rays from the tank to either a tank on the dock or directly to tanks in trucks. The tanks on the trucks had full aeration and temperature control, she said.

Jenkinson’s has made collections at Oyster Creek in the past, Pizza said.

“It was just very much like our other collection experiences we do several times each season with Oyster Creek,” she said. “There was such a large number of rays, we were just able to nip them right out of the water.”

The rays seemed healthy, Pizza said, although some were fairly skinny because food was scarce at that point.

Jenkinson’s will be exhibiting some of the 20 cownose rays that they picked up and will be sending others to facilities, she said. The aquarium also harvested blue fish and striped bass.

The Atlantic City Aquarium picked up roughly 30 rays, education program manager Christopher Fitzsimmons said.

“The experience overall was fantastic,” he said. “It was easy, quick and efficient to catch the wild stingrays.

“We had a need for cownose rays,” he said. “They do well in captivity and are easy to handle and transport.”

Fitzsimmons said the rays picked up were healthy.

“Ours are doing very well,” he said. “Several were already responding to hand feeding within a week after we got them.”

Discovering the rays in the discharge canal was “phenomenal,” D’Ambrosio said.

“It’s the first time we ever had to work with something like this,” D’Ambrosio said. “We worked very well with the organizations. Partnerships that we formed will be used in the future. These are good solid relationships that we formed."

Related Topics: Adventure Aquarium, Exelon Corporation, Oyster Creek Generating Station, Pittsburgh Zoo, atlantic city aquarium, cownose rays, jenkinson's aquarium, and the long island aquarium


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