Category Archives: Summer Scholars

Finally Field Work! Willapa Edition

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My research this summer with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is on the ecological role that oyster aquaculture plays in estuaries. It is commonly accepted that current industrialized agriculture has a huge impact on the environment, and we (a team of my mentor, a lab tech, a Master’s student, and myself) are specifically looking at how the fish and crustaceans utilize these aquaculture beds as habitat. Are they hiding in and around the oyster shells? Are they hunting? Just passing by to get to the more natural eelgrass beds? Or do they completely desert the area? Only data will tell.

Road tripping to Washington

Because our main study topic is aquaculture, and the Yaquina Bay where our Hatfield offices and my summer residences are located does not experience aquaculture, our field work involves taking trips of 3-6 days to other bays that do. This past Friday, while everyone was gearing up for the weekend, our little research team trucked up to Willapa, Washington for my first taste of estuarine field work.

Boating to site on a deceptively calm morning

So far, here’s what it tastes like: wind, salt, and great hotel coffee. The wind blasts in your face while on the boat, giving a nice dose of salty muddy estuary water with it, but to compensate the coffee provided at our hotel has been amazing (and I’m not even a big coffee drinker).

Our days have consisted of getting up at the crack of dawn and boating around the Willapa Bay to deploy and retrieve our many devices that will reveal the secrets of the “fishy” behavior going on below. Our technology ranges from camera rigs fastened with the highly regarded GoPro to sticks with squid piece super-glued to them, such is field work.

12-foot camera rigs at low tide (me for scale)

Same camera rigs at high tide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite parts have been retrieving the minnow traps and counting and measuring the little critters we catch. So far, we have found: the feisty Dungeness crab, the “always looks kind of dead” shiner perch, the slimy gunnel, the abundant stickleback, the English sole that looks like Flats the Flounder from SpongeBob, and my favorite the staghorn sculpin (the namesake of my favorite IPA). The days are long and tiring, but to me zooming around on a boat and tromping through mud all day feels doesn’t really feel like work.

We will continue collecting data for the next few days (stay tuned for Field Work Part 2 next week), and upon return to Hatfield, I will finally have my own data to analyze! As a contribution to my mentor’s work on estuaries, my personal project for the summer will be to compare the collected video and predation data from this trip between two different types of oyster aquaculture (long-line vs. on-bottom).

For the past four years, I have been vegetarian to reduce my environmental impact. Being able to further learn about the impacts of agriculture and contribute to research that will help reduce those impacts has already been an amazing opportunity that I am excited to be a part of, and I look forward to what is still to come.

Road Trips, Rockfish, and Redfish Rocks

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There is a piece of vital information about science I feel I need to share at this point in the summer. Be advised, this may come as a bit of a shock. Scientists are people too. Every single one of us – human beings. If you are a scientist or know a scientist, you should know this. And if you’re reading this now and know me personally, I hope that you at least somewhat recognized this already. However, I accept that it can be easy to completely forget about the human dimension of this increasingly computerized, data-driven behemoth we call science. Last week provided me with ample examples of how we science geeks are just as human as anybody else.

It began with the 4th of July last Tuesday. While the laws of nature may never take a day off, the people studying them certainly do. I spent the day at the beach with a couple other Sea Grant scholars and a handful of the REUs here at Hatfield Marine Science Center. Let me take a moment to say that every one of my fellow interns is incredibly bright. Each intern is collaborating with other scientists, conducting high level research on topics that range from oyster antibiotics to deep-sea volcanoes. I’ve had some great conversations over the past few weeks and learned a ton, because I’m living in close quarters with a group of geniuses. However, our collective genius is probably not always fully apparent. For example, we spent a significant portion of beach time trying to push one another out of a small circle in the sand while playing the classic Independence Day game “Beach Sumo”. Hey, even geniuses need to blow off some steam. We grilled out, played some more conventional 4th of July games (e.g. beach volleyball), and watched the local fireworks just like any other collection of human beings might on America’s birthday. And the next day, it was right back to work in the lab and/or office.

Actually, for me, I wasn’t in the lab or office the next day. Instead I spent the day on a work road trip. Scientists take road trips too. Remember SMURFing? Well we took this road trip down to pick up the fish collected in SMURFs by our collaborators in Port Orford. I travelled with Will, a Ph.D. student at Oregon State studying juvenile rockfish, and Madeline, an REU student working with Will for the summer. The drive to Port Orford is a long one and we filled it with naps, swapping stories, and jamming to mid-90s grunge music. Once we arrived, though, it was all science again. We were somewhat disappointed to have driven four hours to pick up only five fish, but that’s all that had been collected from the SMURFs that morning. As the old saying goes, science is as science does. Rather than turn tail and retreat to Newport immediately though, we chose to take matters into our own hands. The three of us donned our wetsuits and hiked down some 300+ steps at a former coast guard station to reach a beautiful protected cove where we snorkeled for about an hour, collecting fish with nets. Fieldwork is awesome. When the sheer cold of Oregon’s waters finally overpowered the warmth we felt from the beauty of our surroundings (and, more importantly, our wetsuits) we loaded up in the car and drove back to Newport in high spirits. A few days later Will, Maddy, and I went snorkeling for juveniles again, this time in Newport. Conditions were much more difficult. I don’t want to shame Maddy and myself with exact numbers, but the number of fish captured collectively by the two of us was borderline pathetic. In contrast, Will raked in 20 fish all by himself. If I hadn’t personally witnessed him eating a gigantic burrito an hour later, I might believe that perhaps he actually is a fish-catching robot, rather than human.

I spent the most of the rest of my week working on writing up posts for the Marine Reserves website. Not to brag or anything, but the ODFW Marine Reserves Program has a fantastic website. If you have any interest in Oregon’s oceans, marine conservation, or just have a spare 10 minutes I encourage you to check it out at http://oregonmarinereserves.com/. There’s some great information and photos on there about the reserves and the hard work we do here to monitor them. Over the course of the summer I’ll be writing several posts for the news section on the homepage, covering topics such as SMURFing, sea star wasting syndrome, and some of the other projects I work with. The first post went up last Friday if you’re interested!

Writing these posts has gotten me thinking about all of the similar scientific material I’ve read either online or in print. All of these public posts and articles are written by real human people whether you believe it or not. And although the writing style is generally one that intentionally emphasizes the information over the author, I think some of the writer’s personality often leaks into the text whether they intend it or not. In my opinion, this is a good thing for communicating with the public. Making scientific information communicable involves expressing it in a way that interests the public. We’re all social creatures (even scientists), so we’re more interested in things that sound like they were written by humans rather than robots. Most people prefer novels over dictionaries, for example. Next time you’re reading something scientific –whether it’s in a newspaper, magazine, online, etc. – take a second and think about the person who wrote it. Can you tell a little bit about them just by reading it? Maybe they’re a distinguished Ph.D. with hundreds of publications. Or maybe they’re a slightly hungry 22-year-old who is two days late on their weekly blogging deadline, kind of like me!

I do have a (somewhat) decent excuse for being a little late with this post. I spent this weekend camping at Mount Hood with the other Hatfield interns, as well as a group of REUs from Corvallis. That’s right, scientists camp too. The trip was originally planned just for the REUs, but the director of Hatfield’s REU program is awesome and permitted myself and a few other non-REUs to tag along. It was spectacular. We hiked a total of about 20 miles in some 48 hours, the highlight being a 12 mile hike that traversed rivers, boulders, meadows, and mini-snow fields, and ended on a ridge overlooking the majestic Mount Hood. All of this was enhanced by the great group of people surrounding me. We joke around, dance in the moonlight, float down freezing cold streams, have snowball fights/duels/ambushes, and so on and so on. We’re all 100% human, but also 100% scientist, and if there’s enough other students out there who are similar to us, our oceans are in good hands for the future.

Do It For The Gram

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Instagram, that is.

This week I only worked about two and a half days total, which was kind of a bummer but I think I’m FINALLY getting better!

I was in and out of the doctors for chest x-rays and though I don’t have pneumonia (whew!) I did have to go on steroids to get rid of whatever was happening in my lungs.

My mentor was on vacation this week so I had a few tasks to tackle on my own. As I’ve said one of our big goals is to increase participation, especially among younger crowds. This week I spent a lot of time digging through social media platforms like Instagram to find photographers that had a knack for capturing beautiful scenes along the coast. You may be surprised how many people in the PNW are incredibly skilled photographers and how simple it is to get in contact with them.

Social media has made it so easy to discover new people, especially when it comes to photography. And with our initiative I think we have the ability to really strike a chord with the outdoorsy Oregon youth. Through their participation they are not only serving as citizen scientists but truly helping educate the public about the future of the coast. This year, with the introduction of our photo contest and increased outreach efforts, I think the project will diversify and grow significantly.

We also plan to reach out to Sunset Magazine, REI, and the Travel Oregon group to see just how much coverage the King Tides can get before they arrive. I attempted to draft all the communications I could for the upcoming season – fingers crossed it works to get some attention!

July 4th – Newport Style

Amongst the doctors visits I was still able to enjoy the holiday with the clan of interns. I have always loved fireworks so the hype I heard about the show down here gave me high expectations. For a little beach town I was very impressed with the display, but in bed promptly. I am but a graduate, no longer the college party animal of my past.

I found it almost funny that so many of us said things like “I hope people don’t just dump the fireworks in the water when their done” and “I bet the wildlife around here is a little freaked out.” The reason I found this amusing is because it clearly demonstrates how we’ve transformed into the budding environmentalists we always dreamt of being.

As kids we only thought about the food, family, and fireworks. We didn’t have the knowledge or worries we have now about polluting the planet and saving the animals. As we weaved through the cars I noticed so many kids full of pure joy watching the sparks squeal and explode. It made me incredibly nostalgic for the days when we used to be so carefree, but also proud that all of us have chosen this path. No matter what we were all still able to truly enjoy it the show and spend time together as a group.

Cheers to week 3 and let’s hope I’ve got a lot more to report on for week 4!

A hodgepodge of plants, photographs, and shout-outs.

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MOVE OVER, sword fern. I have a new favorite vascular flowerless specimen: Adiantum pedatum, or the northern maiden hair fern. These babies are moisture loving, deciduous ferns that favor nutrient rich soils and are honestly so cool. I first noticed its unique circular configuration while hiking on a small, conical shaped island in Japan called Yakushima. (For all those Miyazaki fans out there, the magical forest in Princess Mononoke was inspired by this very place). I thought it was the most exotic plant I had ever laid eyes on, and yet, it grows right here in our Oregonian backyard! Of course. I’m telling you – this is a special place in which I have found myself.

A personal project I am planning on completing over the summer is a series of illustrations of the plants I have encountered during my time here. You know the classic, stately illustrations of birds you see in those Sibley field guides and all the botanical masterpieces of Alexander Von Humboldt (my all time favorite naturalist) from his exploration of the Americas? Such an artistic representation of science, biology, life, and color deeply resonates with me, and studying something by recreating it through art is the most enriching learning experience. I hope to also use these illustrations as part of the interpretive guides Miles and I will be creating and distributing to tour operators across southern coastal Oregon in order to encourage the ‘experiential’ aspect of tourism that I discussed in my first post. To start, I’ve taken a few photos of some to which I will reference when I start drawing next week. As part of the development of tourism throughout the South Coast that both Dustin and I’s projects are contributing to, we will be staying at the Port Orford Field Station for a few days next week, during which we will be adventuring with professional landscape photographers from Portland by day and (I will be) drawing overly detailed pictures of plants by night. (Shout-out to Amazon and the postal service – ya’ll are the real MVPs for shipping my Portra 400 film on time). Here are a few samples of the plant photographs so far.

 

maidenhairfern

unknown

swordfern

  1. Maidenhair fern
  2. I’m sorry to say I haven’t been able to figure this one out. (But shout-out to Norma at the Extension office in Myrtle Point for the shrub and tree field guides of Southwestern Oregon – I’ll get on this right away…)
  3. Y’all better know this one already.

 

In other news, Fourth of July is my favorite holiday and this year’s was one for the books. I began the day by waking up at 4am. Now, before you ask yourself, “Why in the world would you get up so early on a holiday,” let me just show you this…

facerock

and this…

sisterrocks

Need I say more?

This is Face Rock State Scenic Viewpoint in Bandon, OR. Probably one of the more gorgeous places I have been (and will have been) in my lifetime. I believe I saw two other people the entire time I was there. There is nothing like enjoying the solitude and wildness of a place like this to celebrate the magnificent landscapes that saturate our country. Happy Birthday America, you are a dime and a half!

Here’s me, enjoying being up so early thanks to momma nature. (Shout-out to the Broncos).

selfiez

After this adventure, I returned home for the most restful nap and then savored some patriotic grilling with Dustin, Katie (fellow scholar), and her friends from the OIMB. Later that evening we all enjoyed a bonfire and firework show that lasted for the better part of three hours at Bastendorff Beach. Let me tell you, non-sanctioned firework shows are THE BEES KNEES. I thought the finale was happening more than a handful of times and the show extended to both ends of the beach. The best part is, the Surfrider Foundation led a beach clean-up there the next day to ensure that the previous night’s shenanigans weren’t at the expense of the beach’s health.

After the fantastic trips to the beach on the 4th, I was itching for an equally fulfilling forest adventure. I set out for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest yesterday and got to see the Coquille River Falls in all its gloriousness. Blurry photo, but WHAT MAGIC. (Shout-out to my tripod for being a pal and not falling into the water).

coquille falls

With a few hours left of this weekend, I am off to check out Hanging Rock.

 

 

A Green Perspective on Rights and Wrongs

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Kohlberg

In the early 1950s, graduate student Lawrence Kohlberg became inspired by the works of a clinical psychologist named Jean Piaget. With the help of Piaget’s foundational theory, Kohlberg proposed a series of six stages that would one day be taught in every introductory psychology course. If you have taken one of these courses, you know that this theory was a key component to what we now know as moral development.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

According to Kohlberg, children progress through stages that indicate growth in their moral development. At a young age, thought processes reflect the question, “How can I avoid punishment?” As children develop, the desire to avoid negative consequences morphs into recognition of universal ethical principles. Hitting others is no longer bad because it results in a “time-out”, but because a human being has the right not to be harmed unjustly.

Leopold

Aldo Leopold

Though we are traditionally taught that Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning is specific to psychology and child development, similar discussions of moral reasoning have already occurred surrounding the conservation of natural resources. In his 1949 nonfiction A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold argued that, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

By bringing ethics into human involvement with nature, the conversation begins to change. Instead of seeing nature as a human resource, it becomes an entity worthy of respect. In this mindset, trees are no longer meant to make paper. Water is no longer meant to spring from our sinks. It is simply right to preserve nature out of connection and respect. In the words of Aldo Leopold, “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

Realistically, it is unavoidable to use natural resources for human benefit. However, the mentality in which we approach that utilization is key in influencing behavior. If we allow for input from an ethical perspective, our treatment of the world around us can then stem from one of deeper respect.

This week, I challenge you to assume a perspective of Leopold and Kohlberg when you look outside. Make note to yourself; do you feel a shift in respect? Respond to this blog post at the end of the week and let me know!

 

The Queen of King Tides

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As much as I would love to be referencing myself with this title, I’d have to say my mentor is the Queen and I am but a princess of the tides.

What are King Tides?

Week two was a whirlwind for me that picked up right at the end, but let’s start with the knowledge bombs first.

Many people are still new to the term King Tides so I wanted to discuss a little bit of the science behind the grand daddy of tides. Although Oregon experiences their highest high tides in the winter, some places around the world (like Hawaii) also have theirs in the spring/summer. The height of the tides has to do with the Moon’s proximity to the Earth and the Earth’s proximity to the Sun. When all three are aligned at there closest proximity to each other (the Moon at perigee and the Earth at perihelion) the tides reach their highest heights.

It’s always been fascinating to me how much the Moon influences our life on Earth and this project has helped me explore that even more. I also love listening to the TED radio hour and they JUST brought up one from the archives called “Peering Into Space,” so if you’re interested in hearing more about the universe take a listen! http://www.npr.org/2013/02/15/172136499/peering-into-space

Oregon experiences its King Tides with the New Moon in winter.

Back to Hawaii: A week a two ago the islands were experiencing their King Tides and I noticed through researching their project that the news was alllll over it. University of Hawaii Sea Grant made many appearances on news stations and their photo initiative got a lot of press. For us the publicity is harder because the tides have yet to be catastrophic for the Oregon coast. This is a GREAT thing, but it makes drawing in the public to participate difficult. The Oregon King Tides aren’t urgently impacting us yet, but tracking them can still be so beneficial for predicting issues the coast may have with sea level rise in the future.

Beyond the Tides

Outside of my exploration of other King Tides projects I got to sit in on a few meetings within the department regarding another sea level rise project and the content of the website. Meetings are often regarded as boring but I enjoy getting to see the inner workings of the department. I see this a great opportunity to gain insight as to what I want to do with my future and also witness how state government functions behind the scenes. I really appreciated my chance to discuss this in my expectations meeting as well!!

I’m just so dramatic, really.

Another great opportunity I have with this internship is the time I have to explore GIS and Photoshop. I’ll be spending much more time trying to learn GIS but have yet to create anything impressive (or at least pretty,) so here’s something I was able to do in 5 minutes on photoshop! The techniques are interesting and hard to master, but I hope to do some cool things towards the end of the internship with any new skills I’ve learned.

 

Portland Round 2

As for the end of the week I discovered I was yet again off to Portland for the weekend. One of life best friends had a break from her naval duties and I got to see her for the first time in about 2 years. We enjoyed the sunny Portland weather and sipped wine on the balcony of a friend’s condo in the Pearl District. It was very bougie and quite a dream. We also went about 40 minutes East of Portland to have fun in nature and get some mountain air. A very refreshing week (:

Some place somewhere in the PNW

That was until I came home Sunday and the cough I’ve had for over a month got even worse. Last week the doctors said I had asthma and told me to come on back if nothing improved with my new, fancy inhaler. Well I’m heading back because I sound like I’ve smoked a pack a day for 30 years (I’m 21 so I hope that puts this all into perspective.) I’m hoping the holiday tomorrow is fun and that I have meds coursing through my veins by then.

Cheers to week 2 and getting healthy!

Golf Gorse

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Boy oh boy has it been a busy week!

I thought I’d take some time this week to talk about my workplace at the Wild Rivers Coast Alliance (referred to hereafter as the WRCA). The WRCA is the philanthropic arm of the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, and it funds various projects that focus on the conservation, economy, and community of the South Coast of Oregon. The WRCA itself is funded by the net proceeds from the Bandon Preserve, one of the five courses on the resort (more about golf later).

Not only is the WRCA located on a world renowned golf resort, I am convinced that the office I am working in is actually out of a fairy tale.

  • Almost every morning, Dustin (my fellow scholar), Miles (our mentor), and I are graced with the painfully adorable presence of a black-tailed doe and her ~three week old fawn.
  • The stately conference room sports your choice of free tea or coffee (I don’t need much more than that in life) and walls made entirely of glass overlooking a forest of Douglas fir.
  • The window next to Dustin and I’s desks overlooks a pond sprinkled with water lilies and a pleasant walkway lined with a handful of foxglove flowers. (According to Miles, foxglove [pictured below] is called such because the blooms are juuuust big enough for a fox to snick their snouts in).
  • Sometimes we see another doe with TWINS. Seeing two baby deer is way more fawn than one. (Thought we were finished with the puns? Think again…).
  • There is a labyrinth in the forest next to the office. Feel like taking a calming, meditative break to clear the mind after a long day of contributing to the common good of the wonder that is the Oregon South Coast? Do not fret, the WRCA has got you.

Momma doe and baby. Stay tuned for the twins, referred to hereafter as Intern 1 and Intern 2.

The conference room – I feel important when I sit in there.

Digitalis purpurea; foxglove.

Don’t tell the folks at the golf resort this (it might put a wedge between them and I), but be-fore working here, golf seemed boring to me. This week though, Dustin and I were fortunate enough to play a whole round on the Preserve, and it was a blast. I’m very lousy at golf, but the jaw-dropping views and my entirely-founded-in-luck Par 3 let me putt my overall embarrassing score behind me.

Not pictured: the ruthless, highly flammable, invasive bush that is Gorse. Before the resort existed, stands of this plant stretched as far as the eye can see and encroached on native wildlife habitat. Seeds of this plant can lie dormant for over 50 years…I sure hope this view won’t transform from a golf course into a golf gorse…

My “I got a Par 3 but I don’t know how and it’ll likely never happen again” face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, I have been continuing my exploration of this region and have found my go-to sunset spot. My roommates and I have started a tradition of getting DQ blizzards (hello, childhood) and posting up on a beach so aptly named: Sunset Bay.

Sunset bae

I am both settling into this place and becoming more excited about it as the days go on. It has become a daily routine for me to stop, think, and take a moment to acknowledge how grateful I am to be here with this program. Thanks for reading!

 

Another post about mud and seagrass

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As many of my fellow interns and Hatfield summer inhabitants have heard, I dedicated a majority of this past week to the task of scraping mud off of grass. The scientific version of this activity is “processing seagrass for morphological data and epiphyte biomass.” However, I was essentially scraping mud off of grass.

Seagrasses are a diverse group of vascular flowering marine plants that are more related to terrestrial grass than any of the photosynthetic organisms in the sea. For a quick history of earth’s plants: in the Precambrian time period, the first plant life began in the ocean, by the Silurian period some these organisms had migrated onto land and were evolving as land plants. Fast forward to the Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago), and some land plants were re-invading the ocean. Today, the ancestors of these invaders are mangroves and seagrasses. Fundamentally, seagrass is a terrestrial grass that no longer lives on land.

Seagrasses are distributed around the world in tropical, temperate, and even sub-polar environments. As primary producers that grow in high density, similar to terrestrial grasses, seagrasses are the foundation species of seagrass habitats. They add oxygen to the water, attenuate wave energy, trap sediment, and act as a nursery for many marine species. Although often outcompeted by other stable environmental states such as coral reefs and kelp forests, seagrasses are present in nearly every coastal region around the world, answering the primary question to the work I have been doing “Why study seagrass?”

Now for the next question “Why scrape mud off of seagrass?” What I was actually doing was scraping the epiphytes (organisms that grow on top of another organism in a non-parasitic manner) off of the seagrass. The epiphytes provide surface area for the mud to stick to, making the blades (and my fingers) very muddy. For clarification, I did also gently rinse the blades to remove any outstanding mud and sediment clumps. Epiphytes are viewed as an indicator of nutrient levels (more epiphytes= more nutrients) as well as provide insight into the state of the ecosystem. Epiphytes are beneficial as they are a food source for primary and secondary consumers, but also pose the disadvantage of competition for nutrients and light to the seagrass.

After scraping off the epiphytes, I would dry the mud/epiphyte concoction to remove the water and obtain mass, and measure the length of width of the seagrass samples. The seagrass that I was processing was from multiple bays in the Pacific Northwest, each with three different treatment environments of: seagrass bed, oyster aquaculture bed, and edge between aquaculture and seagrass beds. The variation (or lack thereof) of epiphyte mass and seagrass size will give us insight into the type and level of impact that oyster aquaculture has on seagrass and the local ecosystem.

This project is one that I am truly excited to be a part of. I am using research to better understand how humans are impacting the environment, am learning first-hand from other ecologists about the local ecology and aquaculture methods, and am realizing my dream of improving the environment through research. Although I joke about doing the stereotypical “intern grunt-work” with grass and mud, this internship has only confirmed my career choice. I would much rather be spending my internship and summer handling grass and mud than sitting in front of a computer all day.

An example of how the seagrass beds look here in Oregon estuaries

 

 

Special thank you to my professors Dr. Fong and Dr. Willette for teaching me about the world of seagrass. All information in this blog post was provided from their lecture material.

Barbecues, Burgers, and Beach Volleyball

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There seem to be two key factors that go into the field of conservation. First is finding/studying what it is you believe needs to be conserved. Second is convincing everyone else why the heck it’s such a big deal. I’ve always envisioned myself working primarily on the first side. I’m more scientific than social, a nerd, if you must. Yet this week I spent almost the entirety of my time working on the second side of conservation. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Reserves Program hosted several community outreach events across the coast, and my fellow interns and I were lucky enough to tag along for all of them! Remember that painfully clichéd “in the world of marine biology you either sink or swim” pun I made at the end of my last blog post? I hate to bring it up again, but it became even more appropriate during these outreach events.

First of all, as I mentioned earlier, this was basically my first experience on the outreach side of conservation. To add to that, at the time of the start of the first event, I had been in Oregon for exactly one week. Yet there I was preparing to act as a representative of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. I think I was justified in feeling a little bit intimidated. Our first event was a community barbecue in the town of Port Orford, which sits on the shore of Oregon’s first marine reserve (Redfish Rocks, look it up, it’s beautiful). Port Orford is a tiny fishing town with a lot of people who know way more about Oregon’s fish than I do, so I knew I had to be careful or I could talk myself into uncharted waters very quickly. But it’s not too difficult to talk to people about something when it’s something that you A) are knowledgeable of and B) really care about. Luckily, I know a few things about fish and marine conservation, and I care a lot about both.

Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve

The only stumbling block I encountered was my shoddy grasp on Oregon geography. I met people from Netarts, Yachats, Gold Beach, Brookings, etc. and I did a lot of smiling and nodding along, pretending like I knew where any of those places were. With the help of Google Maps, I eventually looked up all the towns I heard, and I was amazed at how far some people had come! The people of the Oregon coast (or at least those I have met so far) are impressive in their appreciation for our natural resources. Our main purpose for outreach was just to inform the public about who we are and what we’re doing in their oceans. Some who came were more interested in the free food than the free science, but it was remarkable how many were genuinely interested in the marine reserves and our monitoring methods. In Port Orford, our event attracted about 40 community members (quite impressive when you consider the town’s population is barely 1,000). That same evening we hosted a “Science at the Pub” event at a restaurant in Port Orford where we played Marine Reserves Bingo. Again we were able to get our message out to a lot of people. Port Orford was a huge success.

My fellow interns and I spent the next day hiking and snorkeling all in the name of collecting footage for the marine reserves image database (what a great job).

Hiking Humbug Mountain in the name of work

Then we were on the road again, this time up north to Garibaldi on the Tillamook Bay. Cape Falcon Marine Reserve, 10 miles north of Garibaldi was the most recent addition to Oregon’s protected waters, and we expected a different reception there than the one we received in Port Orford. The process of establishing Cape Falcon Marine Reserve was met with much greater resistance than Redfish Rocks. You wouldn’t have believed that though if you attended our barbecue in Garibaldi. We hosted over 100 people (in a town under 1000!) and had to run to the store to avoid running out of burgers. Not only were the numbers impressive, but the people of Garibaldi were eager to talk. I must’ve talked to two dozen different people about the marine reserves and explained what a SMURF is at least 10 times. There was even an incredibly friendly couple who expressed interest in the Sea Grant program and asked me for the address to this blog, which I was more than happy to provide (If that couple is reading this now, hello! Thanks for stopping by!). I shared info about the marine reserves and in return I learned so much about the history of Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay, and the state of Oregon. It was truly a fantastic experience. My hope is that our outreach events got at least a handful of citizens earnestly thinking about the future of Oregon’s coast, how they want that future to look, and how they might contribute to working towards it. That’s all I can ask.

Garibaldi barbecue after the rush had died down

This man knew everything there was to know about the history of Garibaldi. I was happy to listen.

After the outreach events I had a significant amount of downtime which I filled with hiking, biking, reading, running, and learning the real rules of beach volleyball. Concerning volleyball, one of the REUs living here actually told me “for someone so talented, you really don’t know anything”. I chose to take it as a compliment. Two weeks in, my experience in Oregon just keeps getting better. It won’t all be beach volleyball and barbecues I’m sure, but I’ll live with it.

Happy Hikers at Cape Perpetua

Week 2: Good, Good, Good, ~Expectations~

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Beach boys and girls

Week 2: Good, Good, Good, ~Expectations~
…As the Beach Boys classic goes (or something like that).

This past week was my first full week on the job; I already feel like I’m getting the hang of our early morning routine on field days, and that I’m a contributing member of the team. I’ve dug up my fair share of clams, even correctly identifying (some of) them. I got to use the handheld GPS to navigate us from waypoint to waypoint, which requires a very good handle on cardinal direction, and which I have yet to master. This week was also fun because our team consisted of three women (a fact that did not go unnoticed by a fisherman on the dock, who laughed at what he affectionately called our “sexy Gumby suits”). We ladies worked two 11-hour days in a row, allowing us to finish early on Wednesday. We celebrated later that night by going out for dinner and drinks at the local 7 Devils Brewery, where my co-worker graciously picked up my tab. I sipped on a delicious in-house hard cider and enjoyed the company of my ODFW team, live music, and the collection of canines brought along by our fellow patrons (a dog-friendly brewery, does it get any better?!).

Expectations Meeting-

As this post’s title would suggest, this week we held our Expectations meeting between my mentors, myself, and the program coordinators at Oregon Sea Grant. I really appreciated the program’s effort to work together with the scholars and our mentors to establish a game plan for the next 8 weeks, making sure our work is oriented towards reaching our goals. I have been enjoying my time in the field and lab, but a main part of what I wanted to get out of working for ODFW this summer was learning how a state agency operates, at all levels. I wanted to take part in public outreach and learn about the regulation/monitoring/policy aspects in addition to the science we’d be conducting. I brought this up during our conference call and I really felt my voice was heard. In the days following both Tony and Scott Groth, shellfish biologist and project leader for the Oregon pink shrimp fishery (and my co-mentor), presented me with opportunities to take part in outreach, including manning the ODFW touch tank at the state fair and conducting creel surveys of clammers off several docks in the region. This was in addition to the helpful document they had previously made listing my responsibilities and activities for the remainder of the summer. Their flexibility and willingness to prioritize my learning objectives is a clear reflection of why they were chosen as Summer Scholar mentors.

Could Use a Hand (or 2)-

I don’t know if I’d call myself accident prone, per say, but I think it can be fully established that I do not have the best luck. My track record this year includes my identity getting stolen, my new laptop’s battery dying- and learning that the manufacturer had recently stopped producing said batteries, unknowingly driving around with a gas leak for a couple months, and more than a handful of visits to urgent care. And that is where I found myself once again on Thursday evening, complaining of an irritating rash on the back of my hands that had popped up earlier in the week but was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. After consulting with my supervisors, we thought it best to go get it checked out. And, because of all the work I’d been doing in the water/mud and with animals, they informed me that this was likely a worker’s compensation issue and that it would be best to file a claim. So started my first (and hopefully last) encounter with worker’s comp paperwork, which seems to be quite the process. The urgent care facility was very nice, and newly renovated. I was seen by an older gentleman, and after a brief look at my hands we began a long brainstorming session to find out what could possibly be causing the bizarre red, bumpy rash isolated entirely to the back of my hands. My answers to his questions did not reveal a definite cause, nor did his answers to mine. His final advice was to act as a “Sherlock detective” and keep an eye out for things that could only be coming into contact with that part of my hands. He prescribed me a mild steroid cream to be applied twice a day and sent me on my way. It is now Sunday and they don’t seem to be improving much. :/

Mystery Rash

Bandon Pacific Seafood-

One cool thing I got to do this week was tour the unloading area of the Bandon Pacific Seafood wholesale plant, across the street from the Charleston ODFW office. These seamen hard at work pulling fish from their piles and operating heavy machinery were a greasy lot, but many of them greeted us or at least did not seem disturbed by our presence. We met up with Dean, a 20-yr employee of the Charleston ODFW office, who was dressed in foul-weather gear, wielding a large knife and standing over an icy bin of black cod (which is actually not a cod, but a sablefish). He was making precise cuts into both the belly and head of the fish, to identify the sex and remove the otoliths, respectively. Otoliths, literally meaning “earstones”, are the ear bones of a fish and are used to age the fish and determine growth rate. He was also taking length and weight measurements of the fish. He is clearly an expert at what he does, and was eager to explain each step to me. He even cut a weird sac-like parasite out a fish and popped it so I could see the black, congealed blood inside. It was gnarly (a seagull was later seen eating it- again, gnarly). The smell of rotting fish and being surrounded by death did not make the dock my favorite place, but I did learn a lot. One of the things I was most happy to hear was that they do their best to find an economic use each part of the fish/shellfish they catch. For example, shrimp are boiled and peeled before being packaged. The peeled exoskeletons are then saved and sold as fertilizer!

Otolith King

This week had its up and downs but I am very much loving Oregon and looking forward to the weeks to come. Hope everyone has an enjoyable, safe Fourth of July!

Best,

Katie Gregory