WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Today you’ll see how we operate a tucker
trawl net. A tucker trawl net has three different

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nets, and it samples the water column at three
different levels. We’re looking at zooplankton.

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Zooplankton being krill, copepods, and other
gelatinous invertebrates.

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The zooplankton, after it’s caught in the net, is washed
down through the cod end, and then we separate

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it out in the lab, count it and quantify it.
This information about the quantities and quality

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of the zooplankton gives us a lot of good information on the health of our marine ecosystem.

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In years where we have an abundance

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of krill, we also directly see a good abundance
of seabirds and marine mammals. In years where

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the krill is either smaller or fewer, then
we will see fewer birds and fewer marine mammals.