As I transitioned from academia to a government agency, I noticed some similarities between the two. In both places I have worked with an incredible lab/team that are always willing to help figure out why some R code isn’t working or review a paper. Also, in both places I have been constantly learning new things and testing my skills. On the other hand, I have noticed many differences between my experience as a graduate student at the University of Florida and as a fellow with the Marine Reserves Program at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW).

One major difference between the two places is how I speak about my research. As a student I was allowed to be an advocate. I could speak about wanting to expand protected areas and conserve all species to my heart’s content. It was practically expected of me to have these strong opinions about conservation and discuss them openly. Working for a state agency, the expectation is exactly the opposite. I now must be impartial in my word choice both in person and in writing. Though I work for the Marine Reserves Program, I am not an advocate for marine reserves. I am simply studying how the marine reserves may have impacted communities and presenting these results in a straightforward manner. If I take a strong position on marine reserves, the public may lose trust in my ability to conduct unbiased research. If the public loses this trust, they are less likely to support the agency and follow agency regulations. This trust is crucial, but also fragile.

Another difference between academia and government is the type of research being conducted. In academia, the focus is more on what is interesting and would advance the field. In government, the focus is on achieving the mandate. Therefore, our research options are limited and must be strictly applied research rather than theoretical. We also must be transparent about our research and where funds are going since we are a largely tax-funded agency. This is another important component of building that trust.

Government agencies typically work on projects with larger scale timeframes than what graduate students are involved in. While long-term monitoring projects are typically considered boring and unpublishable in academia, these types of data are the bread and butter of ODFW reports. We are constantly monitoring fish stocks, commercial fishing pressure, license sales, oceanographic conditions, etc. Most of these data are written up in annual reports and used to inform management. While long-term monitoring is generally not considered “sexy” research, it is extremely useful to have these historical datasets to understand how things have changed over time. I am using many of these historical datasets in my current work looking at how marine reserves may have impacted factors like recreational anglers’ Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE), commercial fishing employment, and coastal communities’ socioeconomic conditions.

Lastly, one of the best changes I experienced when going from academia to government was an increased focus on having a work-life balance. In graduate school I was applauded for staying in the lab late and working on weekends. In my current position, I am expected to only be working 40-hour weeks and taking weekends off. We spend time in our weekly meetings discussing general life announcements that aren’t marine reserves related in the slightest. We even share good places to hike, mountain bike, snowshoe, camp, etc. because we know we will all have time to do these fun hobbies.

These are some of the major differences I observed in my life going from academia to government. These are solely based on my personal experience and are likely not applicable to everyone that made this transition.

We’ve almost made it! The year 2020 is just about to end and 2021 is right around the corner. Though many issues that were highlighted in 2020 won’t be going away in 2021 and need to continue to be addressed, there are some things to look forward to. Just this month, healthcare workers started receiving the first round of the COVID-19 vaccine. As more and more people get vaccinated, we will hopefully see the end of strict quarantine measures in the near future. Maybe we will even be able to spend the 2021 holidays with family without a mask in sight! 2021 will also bring a new administration with climate change as a top priority, which will likely influence ocean policies and management. So, while 2020 was an important year and we should not forget what we learned in it, here’s to hoping that 2021 doesn’t throw us any detrimental curveballs.

Now that you’re up to date on some of what’s happening in the USA, let me update you on what I’ve been working on. In my last blog post I outlined how I’m using the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) daily angling license sale data to determine if marine reserves have influenced recreational fishing. Since people are no longer able to fish in the marine reserve sites, we might expect this to result in fewer licenses purchased in towns near the reserves post implementation. This might also be observed by an increase in licenses purchased in towns further from the reserves.

However, whether or not people decide to go fishing is just one aspect of measuring a potential reserve effect on recreational fishing communities. For those that do decide to go fishing, how much they catch and over what time period is another crucial component. This metric is referred to as Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE). For our analysis, we calculate CPUE by dividing the total number of fish caught by the number of anglers aboard the vessel and by the number of hours fished. This creates a standardized metric whereby we can compare fishing trips with varying numbers of anglers and hours fished. Specifically, we can compare CPUE reported at docks near marine reserves pre- and post-marine reserve implementation. We might expect that marine reserve site closures could increase effort, thereby decreasing CPUE, by forcing anglers to spend more time traveling further to avoid the reserves. On the other hand, we might expect site closures to increase catch, thereby increasing CPUE, due to spillover effects whereby a greater abundance of fish inside the reserves leads to a greater abundance of fish outside the reserves.

Lucky for me, ODFW has been collecting the information I need to calculate CPUE through the Ocean Recreational Boat Survey (ORBS).  This is an annual survey of Oregon’s marine recreational fishery that estimates both catch and effort at the top 10-11 ocean access points. This survey was first developed in 1979, but the original focus was on generating accurate salmon estimates in a timely manner. The ORBS survey has since expanded and provides valuable data on stock abundance and health for many species, which is used for management purposes.

By looking at both daily angling license sales as well as CPUE on charter boats, we should be able to uncover any potential marine reserve effects on the recreational fishing community. Of course, there are many covariates to take into account that could influence CPUE, such as catch regulations and environmental variables. I won’t dive into this right now, but maybe another blog post detailing the difficulties of finding downloadable historical buoy data without huge gaps is in order. Signing off for now, happy New Year!

Amid the chaotic nature of this summer with COVID-19, protests, wildfires, and an upcoming election, I have managed to seamlessly transition into my second year as a Natural Resource Policy Fellow with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Over the next year, I will continue to evaluate the impacts of marine reserves on coastal communities, communities of interest (e.g. commercial fishers), and ocean users (e.g. tourists).

Over the last year working on this mandate I have discovered that there are no perfect data sources to answer this question. Data often have errors associated with insufficient sampling in small communities, issues with changes in methodology, or are simply not available for the years or communities of interest. However, we can’t let these issues stop us. Therefore, we are gathering and analyzing relevant data from as many sources as possible while documenting the limitations of the data.

One source of data we have used are ODFW’s one- through seven-day fishing and shellfishing license sales. Implementing marine reserves closes off any extractive activities within that area. Therefore, we might expect that daily fishing and shellfishing license sales in communities located near marine reserves would decrease following reserve implementation. However, we also need to control for the historical trend in license sales on the coast. If license sales are decreasing in towns located near reserves, but also decreasing across the entire coast, then this reduction may be caused by something other than the reserves, such as a change in culture.

License sales are just one example of the data we are using to analyze marine reserve impacts. While we don’t always have perfect data to work with, using the best data available from multiple sources should be sufficient to understand if and how marine reserves have impacted communities.