This week has been very interesting in the least. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend an ODF&W office meeting with all the department heads. For this meeting, my mentor, Melissa was trying to give people in her office more information on the community fishing profiles that the Marine Reserves department released. Melissa explained to a mostly biologist-filled audience how qualitative social science methods work and that they should be respected as a form of science. It was interesting, because you could tell that the biologists had a really hard time wrapping their heads around the idea of a report that included only text and quotes, and they kept asking for more numbers. For me this didn’t seem like an issue of right or wrong, but more of an issue of being right or left-brained and it was really rich to watch them try to compromise so that both groups could comprehend the information.

I also started doing pressure counts this week, through which I have learned a lot as well. Pressure counts involve a ton of driving, and take up most of the day, because I drive the width of the marine reserve/MPA at Cape Perpetua and make 10 stops, then repeat this three times per day. When I count people I also have to include their age, sex, and what kind of activity they are doing. In a trial run I quickly figured out that this can be very difficult when you have tour groups of 30 people coming through and I had to refine my methods a bit. So far the counts have gone smoothly and I am definitely enjoying the scenery, but not so much the driving time.

The biggest amusement so far for me has been the people that come up and interact with me. Although I dress in normal clothes, I don’t look very inconspicuous with a pair of binoculars and a clipboard. By the end of the day I end up feeling like a huge creeper. This is part of the reason why I don’t like to tell people what I am doing (Melissa also told me to keep it very vague, because this is such a controversial issue). I started trying to explain it at first, but by the end I gave up and just nodded whenever people asked me if I was doing a specific job. I mean what I am I supposed to say when someone comes up and asks me if I am counting seals…..No… I am counting you? Creeper status. So as of right now people think I am counting fish, seals, cleaning up the beach, and watching for Tsunami debris. Speaking of which, I found a float from the tsunami covered in invasive mussels and they were some of the strangest organisms I have ever seen. I also had a conversation with an elderly man, who told me that he was on the lookout for a boat coming in from the tsunami. I told him about the float and the invasive mussels, and he responded with, “I always knew Japan would invade us eventually.” Oh dear! Then he started launching into some World War II stories. I think this helped prepare me a little better for some of the things I might hear when I conduct interviews with people visiting the marine reserve next week. Melissa trained/prepared me really well to give straight and unbiased interviews, but you never know what someone is going to say to through you off…Nevertheless I am sure I will have some good stories for next week.