About Urban Fishing

Celebrating its 20th year, the Watershed Education and Urban Fishing Program (UWEP) is designed to educate children from urban areas in New Jersey about their local watershed. Children learn how people’s actions, including their own, can affect their water quality, other living creatures, as well as human health. Our Program also empowers students with choices they can make that will help to protect their water resources.

UWEP began as the Urban Fishing Program in 1996. Back then, students participated in a one-day fishing excursion in Bayonne. Students were taught about the importance of their estuary, a vital natural resource, to instill a sense of stewardship towards their community. In the 1980s, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection discovered high levels of potentially harmful contaminants in several species of fish and blue crab in the Newark Bay Complex. As a result, fish consumption advisories were put into place to guide citizens about their local fish. These advisories included practices such as limiting or avoiding consumption of specific fish or shellfish. The Urban Fishing Program was one of the measures put in place to help spread the word about the consumption advisories through the Fish Smart Eat Smart educational campaign.

After a few years, the Urban Fishing Program expanded from a one-day fishing excursion in the Newark Bay Complex into a three-day program that is also implemented in additional urban areas including Camden and Trenton. These three-day watershed education programs now offer activities and instruction on a range of watershed issues that include: point and nonpoint source pollution, local fish advisories, water quality testing, effects of climate change on NJ, combined sewer outfalls, an Eco-Cruise in students’ local waters, and the fishing excursion. To read an article about the program published in the May 2007 NJ Fish & Wildlife Digest (Vol. 20, No. 3, Marine Issue), click here.

For additional information: Click on any of the tabs at the top of the web page for more info on urban fishing programs and the fish consumption advisories in NJ. Please visit the Division of Fish and Wildlife’s website for information on fishing throughout the state of New Jersey. Click on our Discover DEP logo to hear our podcast on the urban fishing programs.

Celebrating its 21st year, the Watershed Education and Urban Fishing Program (Program) is designed to educate children from urban areas in New Jersey about their local watershed. Children learn about how people’s actions, including their own, can affect both the water and the creatures that depend on it, as well as human health. The Program also teaches children what they can do to help protect their water resources.

For the first several years, the Program remained as a one-day fishing excursion conducted only in the Newark Bay Complex. Since then, the content has expanded to a three-day program that includes classroom, storm drain stamping/cleanup, fishing and boating activities. The Program is now also offered in other urban areas around the State, including Trenton and Camden.

Program Goals

Upon completion of our program, students should understand:

• The function and value of an estuary as it concerns animals, plants & people
• The link between pollution, habitat contamination, contaminated fish & human health
• The need to engage in non-point source pollution prevention
• The geography of their community, focusing on where students live in relation to the estuary
• The link between human activity on the land and water quality
• The link between human actions and global warming
• The concept of watershed, bioaccumulation and food chains
• The health risks associated with the consumption of fish contaminated with dioxin and PCBs
• Name the species of fish included in their local fish consumption advisory list
• Where the waters listed in the advisories are located
• Who is most affected by consuming contaminated fish
• Where they can fish in the community
• The recreational and economic value of their water resources
• That they can be active in protecting and restoring their water resources

Day 1: The Classroom

Day one takes place in a classroom setting. There are a variety of topics covered including: the identification of local waterways, the role of estuaries, bioaccumulation, how a watershed works, and identification of the species listed in the NJDEP Fish Consumption Advisory.

Students learn about the fish on local advisories through a game called Guess Who? This leads to discussions about food chains, bioaccumulation, and the likely health effects from consuming contaminated fish and crabs.

Students learn the concept of nonpoint source pollution and engage in hands-on activities that demonstrate
how they can reduce and prevent water pollution. The Enviroscape, a 3-D watershed model, is utilized to
show students how land pollution becomes water pollution.

Students are exposed to global issues like climate change and greenhouse gasses. They learn how sea level
rise will affect New Jersey’s coastlines. We utilize a game called Energize Me that teaches students about
the common connection between their energy use and global warming.

Day 2: Eco-Cruise and Water Quality Monitoring

Students are introduced to their local water through an Eco-Tour conducted by Hackensack Riverkeeper. Here they see how man and nature co-exist in an urban waterway. For many students, this is their first time on a boat.

After their Eco-Cruise, students test their local water for dissolved oxygen, salinity, nitrates, phosphates, pH, turbidity, and temperature. They compare results and check the levels to see if they are conducive to sustain aquatic life.

Day 3: Fishing

On the final day, students learn how to be responsible anglers and practice “catch and release” fishing. Students travel to a place in their community where they are able to fish and hopefully encounter the types of fish that they learned about in the classroom. After fishing, students observe a fish dissection. This gives students an opportunity to view fish anatomy up close. Comparisons between fish anatomy and other animals are discussed.

Participation

The Urban Fishing Program has run for 20+ years and has had communities participate all across New Jersey. Look below to find information on our current and past participating communities, as well as student enrollment statistics.

Current participating communities include:

• Hackensack
• Secaucus
• Elizabeth
• Jersey City
• Carteret
• Seaside
• Trenton