Interdepartmental Co-opetition
Today I went out on an expedition with the Fisheries Department. While he didn’t know the team in the Smokies personally, “Fisheries Guys,” as Ben previously explained them to me, are the same everywhere. They’re a very tight knit group, there are never any women, and they drink like fish. “So, they’re a frat?” I asked. “Nah,” he said, “You’ll like Fisheries Guys.”
Caleb, who is known to his crew as “Chief” or “Boss,” told me all about the restoration of native Brook Trout to the Smokies on our way to the worksite. A bunch of jerks released non-native Rainbow Trout in the early 1900s to entice game fishermen and they outperformed the Brook Trout, driving them from their homes. The Fisheries team brought the first Brookies back to the streams by hiking them up to various locations in the park in tanks on their backs, thus proving that Fisheries guys are, indeed, likable. They are also an all male team this Summer. As to the drinking, just a lot of water. It gets hot out there.
The department is mostly made up of seasonal workers, many of whom are Summer interns or working on grad school. There was also a small team of volunteers, one of whom was a retired Navy Seal Special Ops, who told me all about his adventures scuba diving and his 3200 parachute dives.
We hiked two miles up to the patch of stream we were canvasing and the group immediately set to work gathering water temperature, pH level, water conductivity, depth, and flow. Fisheries Guys, I observed, are less like a frat than a military unit. They’re highly organized, efficient, dedicated to their charges, protective of their own, and a little bit blood thirsty. I guess you have to be if you’re going to spend all day electrocuting fish.
Well, shocking them anyhow. Truth be told, these guys love Brook Trout. “Aren’t they the most beautiful creatures you’ve ever seen?” one of them cooed. But all is fair in love and war and this expedition was both. With waders on- waterproof, rubber overalls- the Shockers would go up the stream with metal rods that send 600 volts of electricity into the water. The fish become momentarily stunned and the Netters would scoop them up and pass them back to the Bucketers behind them. Once gathered, the fish are lightly anesthetized with clover oil, weighed, measured, and then returned to the stream. We covered 600 meters of stream three times in this fashion. This might sound boring but it is not. Not when you’re attacked by two hornets nests, one of the Electric Probe backpacks spontaneously catches on fire, and Eric is shouting “Yee-Haw, round those suckers up!” and directing everyone in a military assault on a tranquil pool. “Jessica, get the left flank. Aaron, stay back with me. Chris, go on up the cascade, light it up, and send ’em on down to us! Here we go boys!”
There was a lot of jargon to learn. “Lit up” is a phrase used to describe both the state of an electrified river and about two dozen other things (think “jawn,” Philadelphians), YIYAs (Young in Years) are the baby trout, and “Riding the Lightning” is when you accidentally get electrocuted by the probes.
So there I was, a bleeding heart vegan scooping electroshocked fish up out of their homes and into a bucket to be doused with clover oil. Aside from the fact that it doesn’t harm the fish and is necessary in order to ensure that they’re thriving in their new environ, it was kinda fun. You have to be focused to see the Brook Trout, which easily blend into their surroundings, quick to get them into the net, and sure footed enough to hike through a stream without being able to see the uneven terrain at the bottom through churning, refracting water. It’s like hiking through a rocky forest on a moonless night while tripping on acid and the person next to you can “light you up” at any moment.
Fisheries is not the only department to employ a little, light trauma to the animals they love and protect. I spent the following morning of my Grand Tour of the Wildlife Departments bird banding with the ornithologists at the Tremont Institute. This involves catching birds in mesh nets- some of which get quite stuck in there- in order to weigh, measure, and ID band the birds for future reference. Birds, who are tougher to get on a scale than fish, have to be placed, head first, into a little orange bottle to keep them from flapping off.
One of the interns, Nathaniel, taught me how to whistle through my hands (finally!) and how to hypnotize a bird while you hold it in your hand. Sure enough, I tipped the Acandian Flycatcher I was holding upside down, slowly righted my hand, and loosened my fingers. The little bird lay calmly in my cupped palm, little heart beating so fast that it vibrated in my hand like a battery pack. I had to pump my hand up and down a few times to get it to launch back into the air.
Back at the weighing station, surrounded by kids, Tiffany, an incredibly capable scientist and teacher, was encouraging the know-it-all kids to be proud of their knowledge, making sure the shy ones got to hold the birds, and instructing an excited little boy how to hold a bird without squishing it to death. The kids were encouraged to name the birds who were fresh caught, resulting in a “Cuckoo,” “Tremont,” “Tremont Jr,” and “Tweetmont.” Tiffany measured my “wingspan” (the same as a Turkey Vulture) and showed me the dinosaur-esque span of an Albatross. When the kids left, she and her team taught me a few bird songs and IDed the birds that sing outside apartment my window every night based on my description (the freakishly loud one was a Whip-Poor-Will).
If Fisheries, with their boys club, cockiness, and potential for darkness, is Slytherin, The Tremont Institute is Ravenclaw. They’re airy, intellectually curious, and aloof in their own way. Hufflepuff is definitely the Volunteer Corp/Ice Cream Social crew; the kindest and most welcoming people I’ve ever met, and Backcountry Hiking, based on their tales of 18-hour Search & Rescues during lightning storms, is pretty clearly Gryffindor. While there is a lot of pride in the NPS as a whole, each department is pretty competitive. They each think their department is The Department and are not shy about jeu-fully throwing a little shade at the others.
When I got back to HQ Caleb, who was born and raised in the Smokies, showed me where the locals hang out. I guess this makes me Durmstrang.
Midnight Hole, Night Hole to the locals, is a deep swimming hole and cliff diving local about a mile and a half up a trail in a far corner of the park. Caleb, who’s a bit of a daredevil, immediately jumped from the highest rocks, which I don’t think is generally viewed as a launch spot. The three local guys who were already there immediately climbed up to the same spot and spent the next 10 minutes walking to the edge, furrowing their brow, and walking back again. They asked Caleb to demo again. Caleb had told me that locals are suspicious of outsiders and two of the guys hadn’t so much as looked at me, not to mention I’m a bit of a daredevil myself, so I climbed up to the high rocks and jumped before I could think too much about it.
“Are you going to be out jumped by a girl?” I yelled up to the two guys who hadn’t yet left the tall rocks. At the same moment, Caleb and one of guys on the rocks turned to me and said, “You’re not a girl, you’re a woman.” If I never return to Philadelphia, this is why.
