The View Below: Connecting People to the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers through Snorkeling

Elaine Langone Center, Room 241

We often perceive that there isn’t much to see beneath the surface of our nation’s freshwater rivers and streams, but once we look underwater, an amazing world appears. Fish of incredibly diverse colors, shapes, and behaviors live in freshwater ecosystems. The streams themselves create other worldly, breathtaking streamscapes, giving humans willing to submerge themselves the opportunity to witness incredible ecological feats such as thousand mile fish migrations, predator-prey interactions, or the vibrant-colors of mating displays. The underwater world of our rivers and streams is unexpected, largely unnoticed, and amazing! They are thriving aquatic communities, composed of subjects intimately tied to one another, and humans, through an aquatic matrix. Snorkeling establishes powerful connections between people and rivers, and is one of the most intimate interactions we can have with a river, experiencing the movement and organisms of a moving water body on its own terms. Snorkeling allows us to bond with subjects that are intertwined in these aquatic communities, granting us new perspectives and reasons to care about the importance of clean water. The ways in which rivers, and the creatures that live in them, are woven into our cultural and natural heritage become apparent. The Susquehanna and Delaware rivers support underwater communities that are unexpected in a heavily farmed and developing landscape. This presentation will explore the Delaware and Susquehanna from beneath the surface, and will show the importance of connecting people to these rivers through snorkeling.