A Day on the Pearl River

On Friday my teammates Ann, Mike and I spent the day on the Pearl River. We put in at the next boat launch up the road. We were prepared for a day in the sun, we each carried a gallon of water, sunscreen, bugspray, and caterpillar hunting equipment. Well, at least we thought we had our caterpillar hunting equipment...as Mike went through the mental checklist while we were well on our way on the river we discovered that we had forgotten our GPS (global positioning system) and our data logger (Palm Pilot). So we did an aboutface and paddle up the river...against the current. After about 15 minutes Ann and I decided to pull ashore and let Mike go back to the take in point. The rivers here in Louisiana are very different than those in California. They are fairly flat. The water is murky and muddy looking. One of the reasons is that there is a lot of tannin in the water from the decomposing leaves. There is also a lot of sediment in the water. In California,our rivers are fairly clear and most of them begin high in the Sierra Nevada. CHALLENGE QUESTION: What animals do you think you would find both on California rivers and rivers such as the Pearl River in Louisiana? What animals do you think are different? What kind of fish do you think we have in common? Do you think they have salmon in the rivers in Louisiana? Which are different?