Dirty Jobs

Mike starts the episode in the Mohave Desert in California. He is there surprisingly to learn about fish. He's at Kent Seatech which has over three million fish swimming in 100 concrete tanks on 160 acres of land. It's the largest fish farm dedicated to raising hybrid striped bass which is a cross between Atlantic striped bass and freshwater white bass.



We meet Junior who is standing in front of a tank full of about 28,000 fish. They're going to take out twelve baskets of fish to vaccinate them. Each year they harvest over three million pounds of fish using pure water pumped from natural artesian wells.



With a net, Junior scoops up a net full of fish and puts them in a laundry basket. Mike is afraid they'll bite, but they don't bite because they don't have teeth. You need to be more concerned about their spines. These fish are about five months old. Mike gives netting a try and catches one fish. One his second try, he gets none. Mike thinks he's missing something with the technique. He actually gets some in the net on his next attempt, but loses many of them when trying to dump them in the basket.



When they're done catching the fish, they take the them for a ride in a truck to the "vac shack". The fish need to be innoculated for the strep virus. There's a water slide at the back of the truck to unload the bass. Junior opens the hatch and the fish flow into the shack.



Inside, we meet Heloisa and Sara who will vaccinate the fish. Again, Mike has to catch the fish with a net to put them into a smaller bath. To make the job easier, anesthesia is put into the bath. This makes the fish sleepy for a few minutes and easier to manage. One by one they slide the fish over the table. In one hand they have the needle with the vaccine and in the other hand, the vaccinators hold a tool with a sponge on the end to help slide the fish into position.



Mike tries his hand at it and drops fish on the floor. He has to be very careful to inject the needle into just the right spot. 25,000 fish come through the vac shack every day. The vaccinated bass go one by one down a water slide outside into another large concrete tank.



Next Mike feeds the fish. For the next eight months, they will swim in a 17,000 gallon oxygenated pool. Mike then meets Alvaro who will assist Mike in getting into the tank and harvesting the fish. 30% of the country's hybrid striped bass are rasied here. Today's harvest quota is 2500 pounds. By producing farm raised striped bass, Kent Seatech helps reduce our dependence on overfished oceans.



All the fish leaving the farm have a tag on them. Workers pull the fish out one by one to attach the tag. They are weighed and graded. The fish end up in a box and put on a refrigerated truck to consumers.



When the fish leave, this is where the wastewater treatment begins. The water that the striped bass were in needs to be cleaned before it is reused. About 300,000 tilapia and carp are put in the tanks to eat the poo left by the bass. Once these fish reach harvest Kent Seatech harvests and sells these fish as well.



Mike and Alvaro go back into the tanks. They need to push a grader forward through the tank. The smaller fish will get through the gate leaving the larger fish that they want to harvest. The gate is huge and hard to push. Finally they get it far enough in where they can net the fish. These fish will eat over 30% of the solid matter in the dirty water. The fish that they net are separated by The larger ones will be sent to market while smaller ones go down a slide back into the tanks to grow some more.



Tilapia is a white mild tasting fish that is good for grilling. Carp is usually steamed. Mike doesn't want to eat either one after knowing they eat poo. The tilapia and carp are loaded into a tanker truck and taken to another tank where they will be fattened up for market. There's a few at the bottom of the truck that don't want to go down the slide. Mike has to climb inside and shove them down the pipe. Alvaro plays a trick on Mike by holding the pipe up so they don't come out. Then Mike has trouble getting himself out of the tank.



Next is phase two of the water treatment process. It goes through four rotating filters that remove more poo and other solids. Then thousands of little plastic devices called "condos" are put into the water. Residents move into the condo in the form of bacteria. The bacteria attracts ammonia that is naturally produced by the fish and converts it into a harmless nitrate. The condos are removed and the clean water is put into the nearby estuary for the enjoyment of the wildlife in the area.



Mike then goes to Ohio to visit West Sister Island out in the middle of Lake Erie. During World War II this island was used for target practice. Now it is a national wildlife refuge that is home to herons, egrets and cormorants. It is also known as Vomit Island.



West Sister Island is an 82 acre wilderness area. No humans are allowed except one day a year when government researchers can visit. Mike loses his hat on the boat ride in, but luckily he is given another one. You need it on Vomit Island to protect your head from the birds. Thousands of birds will vomit on you out here. It is a defense mechanism when they feel threatened. Volunteers are also reminded to watch out for stinging nettle, poison ivy and bird poo.



Doug is the refuge manager of West Sister Island. He works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Today there are also workers from Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife and volunteers from the Black Swamp Bird Observatory which is a non-profit orinthological research organization.



Doug says this refuge has about 7,000 active nests on it with nine species of birds. Today they are here to band the young that hatched this year. This will help researchers track the birds. Mike will first work with Julie and Kim. He quickly learns to walk quickly to avoid the vomit and poo. The US Fish and Wildlife Service provides aluminum legbands which has a unique number on it much like our social security numbers. While explaining the bands to Mike, a bird vomits a whole fish onto Mike. Since birds don't chew their food, they swallow everything whole. Digestive juices take care of the rest.



This island holds over 40% of the nesting herons and egrets of the US Great Lakes. They are banding a sample to track where they go when they leave the island. Workers climb into the trees to get the young out of the nests. If they're small they can easily be brought down to be banded. However, if they're bigger they will use their beaks as a weapon which can get dangerous. They will poke at anything that gets in their way.



One of the ladies climbs the ladder and hands a chick down to Mike. It is a cattle egret chick which looks to be about four days old. The legbands are put on upside down because it wears from the bottom up. Mike assumes that the birds will grow into their legbands, but we learn that this is as large as their legs are going to get. The legs will actually shrink a bit. The fleshy part will harden and toughen up as the bird gets older. The chick vomits into Mike's hand as it gets banded.



Mike wants to climb up to the next cattle egret nest. He thinks the poo is what's holding the nest together. He brings a little camera up with him. There are three babies in this nest that he hands down to be banded. He brings up the story that it's bad to touch a baby bird because the mother will smell your hands and abandon the chick. This is an old wives' tale and is not true.



Next they discover a nest of black-crowned night herons. These babies are much bigger than the egrets. They try to come at you with their "fleshy mouth" but they don't do as much damage with their beaks as the other birds. When Mike climbs up to the nest, he is surprised by how wide they can open their mouths. Workers don't wear gloves for the bird's safety. With gloves, you can't feel the birds and know if you're hurting them. Mike is scared of the baby birds and he is asked if one of the girls should go up there and do the job for him.



They suggest that he stick his hand in the bird's mouth to see how it feels and realize that it doesn't hurt. He has to put up with a lot of razzing from the ladies for his stalling. They record the species, sex and date and location of each bird they band. This information is given to the federal bird band lab.



Fledglings are within three to four days from leaving the nest. They tend to get away from the workers as they try to catch them. They're too big for the nest, but can't yet fly. Mike holds a great blue heron that is very big and close to leaving the nest. Great blue herons can live for fifteen years if they can get through their first year (which is the hardest).



After banding, Mike joins the others to count nests. You can tell when you're under a nest because the vegetation underneath dies it will die from the bird poo. Eventually they can kill the trees they nest in from their poo. Workers are noticing a problem with this with the cormorant nests. A lot of vegetation around their nesting areas is dying rapidly.



The trees with nests have a pink band on it put there from years before. It should list how many nests are in that tree. Mike doesn't like this job because you walk around with your head tilted back all day. It's a literal pain in the neck. He's also afraid that the birds will poo in his face. Today they find that they have a good density of cormorants on the island. With that, Mike's day on Vomit Island is over.