A New Stomach Sample Collection Device for Fish Gastric Lavage Samples

We developed a simple, inexpensive, and efficient handling device to collect the regurgitated prey items from fish in the field. To date, an efficient method of collecting stomach contents during the gastric lavage procedure was lacking. This collection device consists of a long wooden trough with a funnel and filtering cup attached to one end. The fish is laid into the trough, the gastric lavage technique is performed, and the water and stomach contents flow into the funnel, where the stomach contents are retained by the filter bottle. Prey items are easily bottled and preserved. Our device improved fish handling during the gastric lavage procedure without the need for anesthetics (e.g., Finquel), thus avoiding the necessity (i.e., U.S. Food and Drug Administration mandate) of retaining fish before returning them to a wild population.