August 26, 2004
High school student has whale of a tale from the Wabash River
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - While many high school students have stories to tell about their summer vacation, a Lafayette Jefferson High School senior who spent the summer catching shovelnose sturgeon from the Wabash River has a real fish story.
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Kendall Huffer spent nearly every day of the summer aboard a Purdue fisheries research boat weighing and tagging thousands of shovelnose sturgeon - a bottom-dwelling, prehistoric-looking fish. Her work is part of a larger project to determine how Wabash River sturgeon populations are affected by commercial fishing for caviar.
"This was a great opportunity for Kendall and a great opportunity for us," said Trent Sutton, assistant professor of fisheries biology and leader of the sturgeon research project. "From her perspective, this gave her a unique opportunity to experience a field that she might not otherwise have known about."
Huffer connected with Purdue through the Hutton Junior Fisheries Biology Program, a summer mentoring program for high school students sponsored by the American Fisheries Society, designed to introduce women and minorities to careers and research in fisheries. The program matches high school students with mentors at universities and other research organizations.
Huffer is Purdue's first Hutton scholar, Sutton said.
Sutton recruited her for the program last fall, after her high school statistics class visited his lab to collect data for a class assignment.
"Kendall stood out to me that day as a real go-getter," Sutton said. "She seemed interested in what our lab was doing, and I thought she'd be an excellent candidate as a Hutton scholar."
Huffer, an honors student, 4-H member and drum major for the Jefferson High School marching band, said her experience with fisheries research opened her eyes to a field she had never thought about before.
"I had always thought I would major in mechanical engineering or technology in college, but working on this project gave me another option to think about," she said. "I had a lot of fun. It was a great way to spend the summer."
She and graduate student Tony Kennedy sampled sturgeon along a stretch of the Wabash River from Delphi to Terre Haute, weighing fish and marking them with unique identification tags. Wabash sturgeon are harvested for caviar, and Kennedy wants to learn more about how that harvest affects the fish population.
"The Wabash is one of the better rivers in the Midwest for caviar," Kennedy said. "Our fish are bigger than those in many other rivers, and we want to make sure that fishing for them isn't affecting the population structure."
Huffer plans to help Kennedy and Sutton address that issue by continuing to work with them throughout the fall, despite her full courseload and extracurricular activities.
"I'd rather be busy than bored," she said.
Writer: Jennifer Cutraro, (765) 496-2050, jcutraro@purdue.edu
Sources: Trent Sutton, (765) 496-6266, tsutton@purdue.edu
Tony Kennedy, (765) 494-5040, kennedya@purdue.edu
Ag Communications: (765) 494-2722; Beth Forbes, forbes@purdue.edu
Agriculture News Page
PHOTO CAPTION:
Kendall Huffer shows off her catch of the day, a shovelnose sturgeon from the depths of the Wabash River. The Lafayette Jefferson High School senior worked as a research assistant with Trent Sutton, (at left) an assistant professor in Purdue University's forestry and natural resources department. Huffer weighed, measured and tagged the fish to help determine their biological attributes and population dynamics. (Purdue Agricultural Communications photo/Tom Campbell)
A publication-quality photograph is available at https://www.purdue.edu/uns/images/+2004/sutton-huffer.jpg
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