Evidence
Where all of this came from.
39 reference records rest on 224 published pages, and 109 of those come from state and provincial natural-resources departments. That suits a set of records about what lives in the water those departments survey. The rest is federal survey work, university and extension guides, and interagency reports. The counts are below. Every reviewed line sits behind a record or a search, with the sources standing behind its record.
How to read this
A line is cited as precisely as someone checked it.
Where a reviewer traced a line to the pages that carry it, the line names those pages and, when the evidence is narrower than the record, where it comes from — one coast, one lake, one region. 605 of 1049 of the lines below are traced that way. The rest show the sources standing behind their whole record, marked “record’s sources”, because nobody has yet checked which page carried which line, and printing a single citation there would be a mapping nobody made.
National
52
A federal or national government body — USGS, NOAA, EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Park Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
State
109
A state, provincial or commonwealth natural-resources department. Most of this carrier rests here, which suits it: these are the bodies that survey the water the records describe.
Interagency
12
A commission or joint survey run across several agencies, such as the Great Lakes Fishery Commission's forage task groups.
University
45
A university research programme, cooperative extension service or Sea Grant office. Published work, but not the agency that manages the water.
Journal
6
A peer-reviewed paper, or a curated scientific register such as the World Register of Marine Species. Added with the 2026-09-25 evidence review, which went to the primary study where no agency page said what a claim needed.
Probe leftovers
What the weekly check could not treat as ordinary.
These addresses are still the citations. The check named what it saw. None of them is a gone page in the MISIN sense, so the records were not rewritten to hide a redirect, a timeout, or a bot wall.
Iowa DNR — BluegillMoved
The cited address answers through a permanent redirect. GET on the page that lands still names Bluegill.
A same-site move that still names the animal is not the MISIN case. The citation stays until a reviewer reads the new address into the record.
CASG — market squidUnreachable from this network
The California Sea Grant market-squid page times out from the probe network.
NOAA still covers the same animal on this record. The CASG address stays; a timeout is not a reason to drop a citation.
Mass.gov — menhaden and longfin squidRefused the probe
Both creature-feature pages answered 403 from the probe network.
A bot wall is not evidence the page is gone. The citations stay; the weekly check does not fail the build on unverifiable.
Michigan DNR — crayfish identification PDFRefused the probe
The cited PDF answered 403 from the probe network.
A refused PDF is not a 404. The citation stays on the crayfish record until a reviewer can open it.
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute — silversidesRefused the probe
The Menidia page answered 500 from the probe network.
A 500 is not a 404, and it is not a 403. The citation stays.
Claims
Every reviewed line in the app.
Yellow perch, young-of-year →23 lines
- What you can seeTwo dorsal fins that do not join: the front one spiny, the rear one soft-rayedCTDEEP-PERCHES, DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- What you can seeAbout seven broad dark vertical bars down a yellow to brassy flank — bars, not a horizontal stripe, though faint on young fishCTDEEP-YELLOW-PERCH, DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- What you can seeTwo spines at the front of the anal finCTDEEP-YELLOW-PERCH, DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- What you can seeSpines on the tip of the gill coverDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS, DFO-BAITFISH-PRIMER
- What you can seeSlightly forked tail and a moderate-sized mouth reaching to below the eyeCTDEEP-YELLOW-PERCH
- What argues against itA dark opercular ear flap and a much deeper, rounder body point to a young sunfish rather than a perchCTDEEP-SUNFISHESEvidence from: Family-level; the ear flap is described on adult sunfish
- What argues against itA single soft dorsal with no spines rules out perchCTDEEP-PERCHES, DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- What argues against itA sawtooth belly keel rules out perchDFO-BAITFISH-PRIMER
- Declared limitAgency surveys in Lakes Michigan and Erie put age-0 yellow perch at roughly 60 to 80 mm total length by late summer and autumn; earlier in the season they are much smaller, hatching at about 5 mm.WIDNR-YOY-PERCH-SURVEY, GLFC-ERIE-FORAGE-TASK-GROUP, DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSISEvidence from: Lake Michigan (WI, micromesh gill net, 2017) and Lake Erie (trawls, 2023)
- Declared limitNo source consulted gave a school size specific to young-of-year perch, only 50 to 200 fish for perch schools in general.DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- Declared limitConnecticut DEEP compares the two families directly on one character: sunfish lack the opercular spines perches carry. The rest of the young-perch versus young-sunfish separation is assembled from family characters, and no source describes the young fish side by side.CTDEEP-SUNFISHES
- Size bandyoung-of-year: 5-80 mmDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS, GLFC-ERIE-FORAGE-TASK-GROUP, WIDNR-YOY-PERCH-SURVEYEvidence from: Hatch size from Canadian literature; 80 mm upper bound from Lake Erie (NY) fall trawls, 2023
- Water typelake-marginrecord’s sources
- Water typelake-openrecord’s sources
- Water typeriverrecord’s sources
- Water typereservoirrecord’s sources
- Life stageyoung-of-yearrecord’s sources
- Where it sitsnear-shore pelagic schools for the first 30 to 40 days after hatchingDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- Where it sitsthen a shift to the bottom as littoral bottom dwellersDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- Where it sitsschools of young fish stay near shore while adults are farther outDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- How it movesschooling by size and ageDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSISEvidence from: Perch schools generally (Herman et al. 1959)
- How it movesfeeding in daylight and largely inactive at nightCTDEEP-YELLOW-PERCH, DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- How it movesmoving deeper to overwinterDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental ProtectionCTDEEP-PERCHES · State · read 2026-09-02
- Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental ProtectionCTDEEP-YELLOW-PERCH · State · read 2026-09-02
- Fisheries and Oceans CanadaDFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS · National · read 2026-09-02
- Wisconsin Department of Natural ResourcesWIDNR-YOY-PERCH-SURVEY · State · read 2026-09-02
- Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Lake Erie Forage Task GroupGLFC-ERIE-FORAGE-TASK-GROUP · Interagency · read 2026-09-02
- Pennsylvania Fish and Boat CommissionPAFBC-FISH-ANATOMY · State · read 2026-09-02
- Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental ProtectionCTDEEP-SUNFISHES · State · read 2026-09-02
- Missouri Department of ConservationMDC-DARTERS · State · read 2026-09-04
- Fisheries and Oceans CanadaDFO-BAITFISH-PRIMER · National · read 2026-09-02
The pages themselves
All 224, and what each one is holding up.
- Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
CTDEEP-SUNFISHES
- Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
CTDEEP-YELLOW-PERCH
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada
DFO-BAITFISH-PRIMER
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada
DFO-YELLOW-PERCH-SYNOPSIS
- Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Lake Erie Forage Task Group
GLFC-ERIE-FORAGE-TASK-GROUP
- Missouri Department of Conservation
MDC-DARTERS
- Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission
PAFBC-FISH-ANATOMY
- Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
WIDNR-YOY-PERCH-SURVEY
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