Day 4: Fishing Day One

The ichthyologists from IIAP (Erland, Jhoanna, Moises, and Stephany) and Marie led us around the hiking trails to set up fishing traps. We hiked with Don Percy around to four different points: Puente laboratorio #1, Puente laboratorio #2, Shushupe (bushmaster) #3, and Puente baños #4.

We use bait or “carnada” that consists of rice, bananas, and dorado (catfish). Marie’s traps allow fish to swim inside but not back out.

Upon checking the traps in the afternoon, we caught several local species such as Tetragonopterus, Moenkhausia, Hyphessobrycon, all types of Characidae (family) or colloquially known as mojarra.

In the evening, Percy took us on a night hike and told us a story about goblins you can see with night vision goggles that play tricks on people hiking through the jungle. Then we went to a magical place where there is only one tree that has special leaves that have a bioluminescent fungus that grows on it. It is only found in the jungle near ACTS. The tree is called Yacushapana. Percy had us collect as many leaves as possible to throw them into the air to create a “shooting star” effect.Read more