Progress of the White Seabass

It’s been two months and a week so far that Mission Bay High School has been raising the White Sea Bass since they arrived on March 13, 2014. The fish are now more than 160 days old. Sadly, only 27 out of 30 fish are still alive. Two of the fish committed suicide by jumping out of the tank. One of them did not make it when students inserted the tag into its cheek. The tags were inserted two weeks ago on Friday, May 2nd. The white sea bass are now larger than 90 millimeters. A biologist is soon going to analyze five fish to synthesize data in search of diseases.

We decided to interview two students who are participating in Mr. Walters’ marine program to see how they felt raising the fish. We interviewed Casey, a freshman here at Mission Bay. We asked him a two questions regarding his opinion. He said, “I don’t know, it’s fun, cool, and new experience to raise these fish.” We then asked him how this experience has been so far, he replied, “It’s been fun and it’s taken us out of class. We have been to UCSD thanks to this program.”

We asked Walters who else we could interview and he pointed at Azelya. Azelya is a freshman at Mission Bay as well. We asked her the same two questions we asked Casey. When we asked her how she felt raising them, she said, “I feel like it educated us a lot and it’s interesting since it’s hands on. It’s been good, fun and new.” When we were done with our two interviews, we decided we had a good idea on how the students felt towards been part of this experience.

Thanks to Mr. Walters and Sea World San Diego, Mission Bay students were able to raise White Sea Bass. For most students, this was a new experience and they had a lot of fun. These fish will be released into Mission Beach on June 6, on a friday. The releasing of the fish will be announced on the news .