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We're moving the fish into our examination tank, where we are going to let her relax
for a few minutes, and then examine her and make sure she's doing OK.
Now we're going to bring her into the Lunker Bunker, and what we're going to do to the
fish is check her girth, the length. We're also going to insert a PIT tag so we can identify
it later on if it's a recapture, and then examine anything that she might have wrong
with her or that needs attention. She's still lively. She looks also like she's
swimming high, so we'll probably have to fizz her. And then also collect a fin clip sample
or a piece of tissue to identify whether she is a Florida or an intergrade or a northern.
What we're looking for is if there are any scratches in the eye. You'll see that it has
two scratches in the upper part of the eye. What we do is put salt solution in our tanks.
From this point on it's more of an inspection. Anywhere we see any sores or abrasions—right
there—we put some hydrogen peroxide and iodine. We repeat the process and inspect
the whole fish. You can definitely see where she was caught.
The purpose of all this is to make sure that the fish is in good condition and to examine
whether she might get an infection later on or not. We can't guarantee that, but at least
we know where we're starting from and what we have to do at this point. She's had her
physical, and she's ready to go into her tank, so she can spawn—hopefully—if she's a
pure Florida, and if not, she'll go back to Lake Palestine and hopefully have more babies
like her. This tank that we put her in has a little
bit of salt, about 3.7 pounds. It also will have a grass ring in a little bit to make
her feel at home. I'm about to let her go and see what she does.
She's waking up.