Trip to Shannon Point

This organism is a Speckled Sanddab. I thought this organism was cool and interesting because you can tell if it is a left eye one or a right eye one based on what direction its eyes migrated while growing. This organism was found when we trolled during our boat excursion. It was not happy being lifted out of the water so it was flopping around trying to get back into the water. I think this organism's ecological role is to feed on small crustaceans to help control that population and serve as a food source for larger fish, birds and marine mammals. The most interesting thing I saw was just how many organisms we picked up when trolling the bottom of a small section of the sound. I did't think we'd catch nearly as many species as we did. It makes me think about big fishing companies who used to, or still do, use trolling as a form of fishing and just how many extra organisms they pick up that are most likely killed. It makes me sad and angry. I think that trolling has been banned in many places though. I'll have to do more research on that. I once again was shocked at how diverse the Puget Sound is. I never knew we had so many neat organisms right here in our own "backyards". My favorite organism we found was the Clown Nudibranch, but I was unable to get a picture of it because my phone died. A question that came up for me was "Is there a better way for big fishing companies to fish efficiently without the destruction that trolling does?"