Showing us the
Gambusia sheets
By Adrian
On the 28th of December 2003 the
Captains of Brookvale Public School Rodney and Emma and two prefects Kylie and I left
the school picnic to go to Brookvale Creek to catch some Gambusia Fish and
have a photo with the photographer of the Sydney Morning Herald.
A Gambusia Fish is and extremely
small fish that grows at a maximum of 3 centimetres. It is a fish that eats Frog
Eggs and Fish Eggs. It was brought in from America because the people in those
days thought that they would eat mosquitoes. Just like when they thought
Cane Toads would do that but they just did worse things for the country.
At about 10:30 Rodney, Emma, Kylie
and I got out of our swimming gear and into our sports uniform to go to Brookvale
Creek to have our pictures taken. When David arrived to take us there he gave us
a free Stream Watch T-shirts a free bottle and hat.
When we arrived we got our nets and
we went looking for some Gambusia fish. After a while the photographer arrived
when she arrived she started taking photos of us.
After a while David caught a
Gambusia fish. He could tell it was a female because it was pregnant. Then the
photographer took some photos of the fish, David and all of the kids. The
photographer said that it would be in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday.
Then we went back to the School
Picnic. It was a fun day at the creek and I hope that they get rid of the Gambusia
Fish.
The female Gambusia in the jar.
By Adrian
The Gumbusia Fish's other names are Plague Minnow, Mosquitoe Fish,
Eastern Gumbusia and Guppy.
Introduction to Australia was from America in 1925 to control
Mosquitoes. Now they just eat fish and frog eggs; they also kill baby
fish that have been found to have depleted the amount of native water
life.
Because of their impact on how many frogs they can kill they have been
declared a Key threatning Process under the NSW Threatend Species
Conservation act in 1995.
Unfortunaltely Gumbusia fish are sold in pet shopes as feeder fish or
put into backyard ponds and released illegily into other creaks.
Unfortunately Gumbusia are found in many Australian Waterways. The fish
prefer still or slowly flowing water but they can take any water
condition from -4 degrees all the way up to 44 degrees. They prefer
freshwater to saltwater but can live in both.
Gumbusia are very fast breedng animals with just from one fish their
population can multiply to 1 944 000 000 000 in just one year. This is
why they are such a pest.
Unlike the native fish they have
live babies.
Trying to catch the Gambusia
By Rodney
On the thursday 28th December the Captains of Brookvale (Emma and I),
two of the prefects (Kylie and Adrian) and the whole school were on a
school picnic down at Dee Why Beach.
Kylie, Adrian, Emma and I left the beach because we were chosen to be
in the Sydney Morning Herald. We had to change into our sports uniform.
We were excited. We met David by his car. We were given a Stream Watch
drink bottle, a Stream Watch T-Shirt, a Stream Watch hat, a Stream
Watch bag and finally we were off to Brookvale Creek just around the
golf course.
When we arrived at the creek we met the photographer Edwina. We were
trying to catch a Gambuzia Fish because it's a danger to Australia and
it isn't native.
As we tried to catch a Gambuzia Edwina was taking pictures of us. We
had bad luck trying to catch a Gambuzia because it's quick and it's 3
centimetres long. We used a net to try and scoop it up but we had no
hopes of catching it.
At last David caught a Gambuzia and it was tiny. We all went back to
where we first started. Edwina was taking a pictures of the fish. It
was hot on that day.
We went back to Dee Why in David's car which was cool. Well, we had
lots of fun by trying our best catching the fish. At least one Gambuzia
Fish was caught. We all enjoyed it.
