Well, actually my summer internship with Oregon Sea Grant and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) began last Wednesday. I arrived here at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB) in Charleston, OR and barely got settled in before meeting my mentor, ODFW shellfish biologist Scott Groth, and starting in with fieldwork.
At this point allow me to call your attention to the Oregon Sea Grant “Meet the Scholars” webpage. There you can find out a little bit more about me, my fellow interns, and the projects we’ll be working on throughout the summer.
Although my internship is centered on shellfish, my first task was to assist the ODFW fish biologist with shore seining efforts. We worked in a team of four and seined five locations in the south slough of Coos Bay over a three-hour period. We were seining for salmonids as part of a population study conducted by the fish biologist, but many species turned up in the net: flounders, sculpins, gunnels, surf smelts, surfperch, jellyfish, dungeness crabs—it had all the makings for a chowder! We sorted out all the salmonids and took length measurements before returning them to the slough. I learned to tell the difference between an english sole and a sand sole and got my first experience in shore seining. It was pretty cool.
The next day Scott and I traveled out into the south slough and took some preliminary measurements for the heart cockle study. Our goal was to set some points via GPS that would serve to outline the boundaries for the survey area. We encountered some areas of soft mud, and it was then that I learned than I’m “a sinker” as opposed to “a floater.” Darn! Well, it made things a bit more challenging, but far from impossible. If nothing else I know I’ll be getting a good workout trudging through the mudflats this summer. We encountered a friendly cockle harvester who was quite willing to let us take some measurements of his catch. I got some experience using digital calipers and measuring cockle shells. Other new experiences included my first introduction to ArcGIS, maintenance of outboard motors, and cockle harvesting techniques—basically you just drag a rake through the mud, and out they pop.
This coming week our focus is shifting to the tagging of red crabs. What variety! Stay tuned…..more to come!
