Tag Archives: Oregon SeaGrant

Legislating Marine Science Policy

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Hello everyone!

My name is Morgan Oberman, and I am currently the Oregon Sea Grant 2025 Legislative Fellow for the Oregon Coastal Caucus. I began this fellowship earlier this year as I was completing my final semester of Law School at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland. Before attending Law School, I graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a B.S. in Marine Biology. I am broadly interested in natural resource-based policy, especially policy affecting marine ecosystems and organisms.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Oregon Coastal Caucus is a bicameral and bipartisan group of Oregon state legislators representing Oregon’s coastal legislative districts. This means that the Coastal Caucus comprises legislators from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, including both Republican and Democratic members. Oregon has four coastal house districts—District 1, District 9, District 10, and District 32—and three coastal senate districts—District 1, District 5, and District 16. This session, the Chair of the Coastal Caucus is Representative David Gomberg (D, House District 10), and the Vice Chair is Senator David Brock Smith (R, Senate District 1). The other members of the Caucus are Senate Dick Anderson (R, Senate District 5), Senator Suzanne Weber (R, Senate District 16), Representative Boomer Wright (R, House District 1), Representative Court Boice (R, House District 9), and Representative Cyrus Javadi (R, House District 32). As the Coastal Caucus fellow, I provide technical assistance for the Coastal Caucus members, communicate with coastal constituents and key partners, and track important coastal legislation.

During this session, I have been tracking two important bills affecting Oregon’s marine ecosystems: HB 3587 and HB 3580. HB 3587 directs the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) and the Oregon Ocean Science Trust to take action to manage Oregon’s rocky habitats. HB 3580 establishes a task force to analyze research on Oregon’s eelgrass habitats and provide recommendations on how to best manage, protect, and enhance eelgrass habitats.

The Rocky Habitat Bill, HB 3587, directly provides funding to DLCD to develop management plans for rocky habitat sites identified in the Territorial Sea Plan. DLCD will then implement the management plans in collaboration with other state agencies, federally recognized tribes, and other key stakeholders. Furthermore, DLCD has been granted the authority to amend the Territorial Sea Plan, enabling it to adapt to future impacts on Oregon’s rocky habitats. The Bill additionally directs the Oregon Ocean Science Trust to create grants to implement non-regulatory rocky habitat management programs.

The Eelgrass Bill, HB 3580, creates the Task Force on Eelgrass Resources. The task force comprises a diverse group of at least nineteen members. The members of the task force include, but are not limited to, representatives of conservation groups, seafood industries, local governments, state agencies, tribal nations, and community stakeholders. The task force will identify current and historic seagrass habitat ranges and analyze existing laws and regulations to develop recommendations for protecting, managing, and enhancing eelgrass habitats. The task force can provide recommendations on both policy and regulation for a wide variety of topics that directly or indirectly affect eelgrass. The task force recommendations also include recommendations as to how to effectively monitor and enforce potential policies and regulations. The task force will collaborate with communities, industries, businesses, and other stakeholders impacted by the loss of eelgrass habitat to develop the most effective policy and regulation recommendations.

Currently, both bills are in the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, a bicameral committee that oversees and approves Oregon’s budget appropriations. Any bills with a fiscal impact are assigned to Ways and Means by the presiding officers of the House and the Senate (the Speaker of the House and the Senate President, respectively). The Ways and Means process in Oregon is somewhat complex because of how Oregon predicts its budget. Oregon has a State Economist who, every quarter, delivers a Financial Revenue Forecast to the legislature, which predicts what state revenues will likely be over the next biennium. Once the State Economist publishes the second-quarter revenue forecast during Oregon’s biannual budget-writing session, the Ways and Means co-chairs and the presiding officers begin to hold work sessions on legislative proposals with fiscal impacts. The revenue forecast for this year was released on May 14th. Typically, the Ways and Means Committee first determines state agency budgets and then proceeds to consider bills introduced by members of the legislature. Ways and Means has begun to consider agency budgets and some policy bills, but several agency budgets and most policy bills have yet to be evaluated by the Committee before they are sent to the House and Senate chambers for a vote of final passage.

The latest revenue forecast for this biennium is significantly lower than the last quarterly revenue forecast due to various economic factors, though revenues are expected to nominally increase over the previous biennium. This reduction in expected resources since the last quarter’s forecast, despite a nominal increase in total revenue, has resulted in tough deliberations over the funding levels of agency budgets as costs have escalated since the last biennium for the goods, services, and labor that state agencies rely on. Fewer bills than legislators hoped to get approved by Ways and Means will likely reach the Governor’s desk this session.

HB 3580 and HB 3587 are still very much “alive” for now, but they face a significant hurdle as the Ways and Means Committee determines how to prioritize available resources. Luckily, both bills have been widely popular, with bipartisan sponsors and near-unanimous support during public testimony, so there is still a good chance the bills will continue forward to a vote on the House and Senate floors after approval from Ways and Means.

I will be sure to post a follow-up update after the session ends by the end of June regarding the final fate of both bills.

Best,

Morgan

We’re gonna need a bigger boat…and a better understanding!

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It’s June and we’re in the depths of field season! 

Myself and a WDFW colleague tagging a younger sevengill shark in Washington

My project focuses on incorporating broadnose sevengill sharks into ecosystem modeling in the northern California current ecosystem, which encompasses the coasts from San Francisco up to British Colombia. Historically, predators, in general, have not been included in our understanding of the Pacific Northwest coastal ecosystems (the few studies done have focused on orcas or pinnepeds such as sea lions). So, very little is known about sharks in this region. The broadnose sevengill is a large (up to 10 ft/3 meters and 230+ lbs/107 kgs), apex predator in other locations around the world. I suspect they play a similar role here in Oregon and Washington…especially when it comes to our very important local fisheries, like salmon, halibut, and crab! To find out, I am tagging sevengills with acoustic tags (to track movement) and taking tissue samples (to determine what they’re eating over different periods of time, using stable isotope and stomach content analysis). 


Since April, I’ve been going out once a month to look for sevengill sharks in Willapa Bay, WA. Sevengills – which live in temperate waters – show up seasonally in certain bays around the world. Willapa Bay, the second largest BAY on the west coast of the United States, is one of those specific bays. We’re not sure why sevengills show up there, but we do know that Willapa is also an important estuary for many species, including salmon, Dungeness crab, harbor seals, as well as Endangered Species Act-listed green sturgeon. Originally we thought that the sevengills showed up in June or July. But after doing some reading of some previous studies, I suspected that they might be showing up as early as April. And if they were, I wanted to sample them.
So out we went in April. Three days on the water and…..nothing! I was confused. I thought they’d be here! Maybe I’m just wrong? After talking with some local fishermen, though, we discovered…the local Chinook salmon run was running late. Maybe related? Unknown. We went home empty-handed.


In May, we returned. Before we got on the water, a local fisherman revealed…the salmon are here! Okay, but where are the sharks? Unknown. We got out on the water and spent most of the day fishing for sharks. Waiting waiting waiting. Right as I was about to give up — tug tug tug. “Did I catch a stick?” I pulled up my line and…..SHARK! It’s a sevengill! They’re here! I almost cried (a moment captured perfectly on camera by my advisor). How exciting!!! We caught two more sharks that day. AND we detected previously tagged sharks…from 2021! They are here! Which begs the question. What are they doing though? Unknown!

The exact moment that I saw the first sevengill shark in April, confirming they had officially arrived! I almost cried. (Shoutout to my advisor for snapping this picture).

Is it related to the salmon, or is it something else? Still unknown. But that’s what I’m trying to find out. Stay tuned (links below to keep up with me and my lab on social media)!

A broadnose sevengill shark, ready to be released after tagging!

From the Oregon Legislature to Research and the Oregon Applied Sustainability Experience (OASE)…

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Here’s to my first blog post as an Oregon Sea Grant Fellow!  It’s been a busy winter as I have transitioned from supporting the Coastal Caucus at the Oregon State Legislature to working with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the Oregon State Marine Board (OSMB), and helping to coordinate logistics for scholars applying to the 2019 Oregon Applied Sustainability Experience (OASE).

As a joint project for DEQ and OSMB, I am beginning research on boat anti-fouling paint usage and potential aquatic impacts in Oregon.  In case you didn’t know, boaters who leave their boats moored at marinas  in salt-water environments often use anti-fouling paint on the bottom of boat hulls to prevent the attachment and spread of aquatic organisms, including invasive species.  The use of anti-fouling paint in freshwater environments is less common as there are very few organisms that are classified as “fouling” that would be of concern for attaching to the bottom of a boat.  Boat bottom paint comes in many different forms with an array of different chemicals (or no chemicals such as an epoxy based paint).  In addition, the majority of boats in Oregon are “trailered” meaning they hardly ever spend an extended amount of time being moored in the water and are primarily day use boats where applying an anti-fouling paint to the boat bottom, would not be necessary.  One of the more common elements in anti-fouling paint is copper. As this chemical slowly leaches out of the paint, any organisms trying to attach to the surface of a boat, find it undesirable and thus don’t attach.  However, numerous studies indicate that high levels of copper can negatively impact salmon and potentially cause other unwanted harmful water quality conditions. DEQ and OSMB developed this project to increase place-based knowledge relating to anti-fouling paint usage, and potential, if any, aquatic impacts in Oregon.

It’s a new-to-me research area, plus fascinating and challenging, as copper is an essential nutrient at low concentrations, and is an abundant trace element that occurs naturally in the Earth’s crust and surface waters. In fresh water environments, levels can frequently fluctuate (toxic/not toxic) due to changes in temperature, pH, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), concentrations of cations such as calcium, magnesium and sodium, variations in alkalinity, etc. Too much copper can be a serious issue to aquatic organisms, and it can negatively impact salmon by impairing their sense of smell, which in turn, may negatively impact their ability to travel for spawning, avoid predators, etc. And it’s not just salmon, if copper levels are too high, other fish in fresh water, like trout, can experience reduced resistance to diseases, altered swimming, impairment to respiration, blood chemistry, and more.

That’s where I come in… I am currently in the processing of collecting data, reading studies, connecting with water quality experts, and beginning my connections with boaters/marinas/boatyards to compile a report that will summarize and provide some clarity on current anti-fouling practices and known levels of copper in some of Oregon’s salt-water and fresh water environments.

I am also currently assisting with the 2019 Oregon Applied Sustainability Experience (OASE). A joint program of Oregon Sea Grant and DEQ, OASE will place seven student interns at host businesses in Oregon to help analyze the company’s waste streams and to research and recommend process improvements that will lower operating costs while reducing negative environmental impacts. For the past month, I have been assisting with the preparation and organization of the administrative portions that will assist the team at Oregon Sea Grant and DEQ, and me, as I provide near-peer mentoring support to the selected candidates during their 10 week experience. Host businesses have been selected and students can apply now. This should be an exciting and fun project and I can’t wait to hear about the creative ideas for reducing waste that the interns develop over the upcoming summer months.

Cat Dayger meets Collaborative Independence in Salem

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Welcome to the first blog post of the 2016-2017 Oregon Sea Grant Natural Resources Policy Fellow! It feels like an impressive title compared to PhD student, the hat I’ve been wearing for the past 5 years. Basically everything about this fellowship is different from what I experienced as a full-time PhD student and I find that I can’t stop marveling at the contrasts.

For one thing, I have a regular schedule. My husband has heard me say a million times “Science waits for no one” to explain why I unexpectedly needed to stay late at the lab, work weekends, and go into the lab early in the morning.

An imposing building to work in to go with my imposing - maybe just long - title.

An imposing building to work in to go with my imposing – maybe just long – title.

Bench science – experiments in a lab – often take more or less (ha! never!) time than expected, which means making plans with friends and family are constantly derailed or postponed. Now, as a Policy Fellow working in the Governor’s office, my schedule is largely confined to regular business hours. There are holidays! I find the more predictable schedule refreshing.

For another, I am surrounded by colleagues excelling in the career I see for myself pursuing. I knew fairly early on in my PhD career that I was not interested in a career in academia, at least not at an institution primarily focused on research. I love doing bench science and field work, and I love the teaching and mentoring I’ve done, but the prospect of packing grant writing and academic service on committees around research and teaching only fills me with dread rather than excitement. I find that I am inspired and focused in ways I haven’t felt in a while because I’m immersed in the field I’m most interested in. I guess I’m also relieved to feel like I’ve made the right choice.

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The State of Oregon coffee (tea) cup I bought the first day at the Capitol.

Not everything is so different though. I still work primarily independently, at least so far. I spend some time working as part of a team on projects with tight deadlines, which I’ve always perversely found enjoyable. And I still drink tea almost constantly at my desk. How do people live without hot drinks?

One of the unexpected surprises of my first few weeks has been the commute to Salem, OR. I was dreading it, frankly, but I’ve been riding the Amtrak train and watching the sunrise over the farm fields recalls to me the time I spent driving through corn fields to feed horses and go to horse shows early in the morning when I lived in Michigan and Illinois. It seems I still have a soft spot

The tumble of morning glories on my walk to work.

The tumble of morning glories on my walk to work.

for early mornings in rural America. I’m also enjoying exploring Salem itself on my lunch breaks. I keep finding this beauty out of the blue that stops me, literally, in my tracks.

I don’t have much to report on the actual work I’m doing yet. I’m still getting on all the right people’s radar so they know I’m the person to contact about ocean and coastal issues. Today, I look forward to attending the Oregon Shellfish Task Force meeting where they will finalize their recommendations to the legislature. I’ve been hearing about the progress of Shellfish Task Force for more than a year from Kessina Lee, my predecessor and PSU Biology colleague, so it’s exciting to see the product of all that work.

Next time, I hope to be able to outline the projects I’ll be working on and maybe highlight some of the neat architecture and sculpture I get to walk by every day working around the Oregon State Capitol.

 

 

Report from Oregon Ocean Science Trust Science Summit

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For two days in Newport in May, over 40 natural and social scientists and agency natural resource managers met to discuss research and monitoring priorities in Oregon’s nearshore. Convened by the Oregon Ocean Science Trust with funding support from The Nature Conservancy, Oregon Sea Grant, and the Packard Foundation, the goal of the workshop was to identify and prioritize research and monitoring funding needs, scalable to budget resources available, to provide baseline and trend data and inform key research questions. These research questions could relate specifically to changing ocean conditions such as ocean acidification and hypoxia, marine habitat, fish and wildlife, and the vulnerability and resilience of coastal communities to changing ocean conditions and the effects on marine resources.

The Oregon Ocean Science Trust is intended to serve as a funding mechanism for research and monitoring in Oregon, and by convening an interdisciplinary Science Summit to prioritize funding needs, the Trust will better be able to direct available funds to the most relevant and urgent areas. The attendees at the Summit were a Who’s Who of oceanography, fisheries science, marine ecology, geochemistry, economics, sociology, and anthropology. It would have been enough to be a fly on the wall for this event, but I was fortunate to be one of the breakout session facilitators. The breakouts were organized to spread representatives of different disciplines out among all the groups, making the groups as academically diverse as possible. Each group was then tasked with generating research and monitoring plans at three different budget levels that would address key nearshore questions. There were great back-and-forth discussions, and it was fascinating when all the groups came back together, to see how each group had approached the tasks. As a facilitator, I used a much lighter touch than I otherwise might have because it seemed like a good idea to let the conversation and exchange between group members really develop, and then bring everybody back to the template we were given. The end result will be a report with key research themes, questions, and monitoring approaches identified, as well as a plan for a comprehensive research and monitoring program for Oregon’s nearshore with three budget levels identified. The event, which was conceived of in late January, came together quickly and nearly everyone invited was able to attend, and produced substantial results which can be used to guide funding for important efforts in the nearshore as we face changing ocean conditions and the related impacts on communities. Definitely one of the coolest gatherings I’ve gotten to attend in my time with OSG!

Week 2: Dungeness Crab in the Lab

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Week 2 has ended and I have to say that Oregon is becoming more and more homely. Friends are being made and new experiences are occurring. Early in the week, core samples were taken in order to capture mud shrimp. A core sample, to those of you unaware of what that is, is where you take a large metal tube and press it completely into the ground and then proceed to dig all of the sediment out and sift through it while for mud shrimp. To get the core into the ground you must stand on top of it and do the “shrimp dance” which consists of wobbling motions. Once the mud shrimp were captured we measured the carapace length, sexed them, and checked for the infestation of parasites. The parasites are definitely not the most appealing creatures to look at, but they are still very interesting.

The mudflats show no mercy to those who science.

Mid-week many bucket lids were purchased (24 total). The reasoning for this is that we began to build experimental pit traps that would be size selective for the capture of small Dungeness crabs. We made two different designs, one with a larger whole and steeper funnel, and the other with a smaller hole and more gradual funneling. To set these traps, you basically just dig a hole in the ground and place the bucket in and wait for the crabs to fall in. Some people around here call them the “Dodos of the sea”. This is not due to having a resemblance with birds, but because of their ease of capture. After setting the traps we decided to place GoPro cameras onto two of the traps to capture some footage and observe the crab’s interactions with the traps. I’ve taken a brief look at the footage and there is some interesting behavior to note. I will definitely be including some of the video in my next blog entry. Several crabs were captured overnight, as well as a few Staghorn Sculpins, and a lone jellyfish. The next step will be to build 24 traps in total, and set them out in various locations. I’m really looking forward to see how things will play out with the implementation of our traps.

Young Dungeness crab captured in the pit traps

It’s been only two weeks and I already feel like I’ve learned quite a lot. Being from a freshwater background, marine and estuarine has offered a new perspective. 8 more weeks to go!

From Cornfields to Coastal Mudflats

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It has been roughly 12 days since I departed on my 4 day cross-country road trip from Indiana to the coast of Oregon. Many sites were seen like Medicine Bow, Winnemucca Mountain, and Crater Lake. Taking the time to see such colossal structures really made me realize how small we are in the vastness of our own country, let alone the planet.
It took 35+ hours to get to Oregon, and I’ve only been here for roughly a week, but I already feel a sense of home here. For the next 9 weeks, to my understanding, I will be working with integrating different pit trap methods for the capture of juvenile Dungeness crabs (Cancer magister) as well as the utility of using underwater video to get quality quantitative data on fish and invertebrate use of US West Coast intertidal estuarine habitats. Working this week with the USDA under my mentors, I have been very fortunate to already be getting out into the field.

 

Dungeness Crab (Cancer magister) caught from pit trap

This week we drove 60 miles north to Netarts, OR and checked shell bags for colonization by shellfish. We also took water quality in areas that were bare (lacked vegetation) and areas with seagrass present. Closer by (Yaquina Bay), pit traps were set up for the capture of Dungeness crabs to quantify their morphometrics to create more accurate size selection in the future. To our delight, we managed to catch several crabs, along with a few mud shrimp.

Mud shrimp that was dug up with the traps

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no doubt that the next 9 weeks will pass by quickly, a lot will be learned and a lot of great memories are to be made. With that I hope you continue to enjoy my blogging as the weeks go by. I’m lucky to call this beautiful city and state my home for the summer. Follow me on here or via twitter @Prechtelguy93

Week Nine: Symposiums, Aquariums, and Other “iums”

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With week nine come and gone, my time here in Oregon is winding down. This week was devoted almost entirely to finishing up my final presentation for the Summer Scholars program and beginning to tie up any lose ends at the ODFW. After finally finishing up my presentation early in the week I practiced my speech several times on willing ears. Luckily, all the COSEE interns also had to present their final work as well and it provided the perfect opportunity to practice our presentations to an audience and receive feedback.

On Friday, Scott and I drove up to Newport (via the 101, my favorite highway!) so I could present my final work at Hatfield for Sea Grant’s end of summer symposium. It was awesome to finally see what all the other summer scholars had been accomplishing this summer and to also share my accomplishments from this summer with them and with the scientific community. Everyone had done a great job with their projects and also gave fantastic presentations; my attention was captured the entire symposium! Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of the symposium so just try and imagine a very happy and enthusiastic Sam Thiede speaking about Pacific heart cockles to a room full of people!

And, seeing as I had never been to the Newport Aquarium before, Scott and I went to check it out after the presentations were over. It was cool to see all the coastal fishes up close, especially the Orford Reef exhibit where you could walk through glass tunnels through the aquariums. Unfortunately, I am not SCUBA certified and could not check diving off my summer bucket list. However, walking through the tunnels in the aquarium provided me with the perfect opportunity to see many of the species I’d have encountered during a dive. While I’m sure nothing compares to the actuality of swimming through open water, I was pretty happy that I at least caught a glimpse at what I was missing. Motivation for SCUBA certification: activated!

Sea Nettles at the Newport Aquarium!

Orford Reef exhibit at the Newport Aquarium, filled with Leopard Sharks!

This weekend, I was again reminded just how close I was to my summer’s end. This week was the final week of the term for OIMB students and also the last week for all of the COSEE interns. At the end of the weekend almost everyone on campus headed back to their homes and colleges. It was quite a shock going from seeing 30 people every day to only a handful. I have met some amazing people in Charleston this summer and saying goodbye is always hard. In less than a week, even I will follow suit and have to pack up and move on out.

This week I will be finishing up on my memo that I am writing for the ODFW and also help Scott with any end of summer field work. It makes my heart heavy when I think of leaving Charleston, I feel like I’ve really made myself at home here. Until next time, cheers!

One last beach outing at Bastendorf with some of my friends from OIMB and COSEE!

Week 8: May the Forest Be With You

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With week eight coming to a close I’m baffled at how little time is left and how quickly it’s gone by! Charleston has definitely become my home away from home. Scott has been laying off on some of the field work in order to let me finish up my end-of-internship responsibilities. However, neither of us can stand being at the desk for too long and so I was able to get in some outdoor time this week!

Wednesday we attempted to return the cockles from our free-range methods experiment back to their original site at Valino Island so that Scott and Jim can continue to monitor them after I have gone. However, the tide beat us to it so we ended up having to return them a different day.

Scott also left me in full charge of the boat, which put my skills to the test! I was to pick up the boat from the storage unit, hook it up to the hitch, and then after picking Scott up, back the boat down the ramp. It took me about 15 minutes to back the trailer down the ramp—much shorter than in my previous attempts—so I was pretty proud of myself! Scott even let me drive the boat around the bay for part of the time! Afterwards, I was in charge of cleaning the boat and flushing the engine and getting it back to storage. Boating skills: success!

On Wednesday evening, OIMB held their annual Invertebrate Ball in which all students, interns, and even professors dress up like invertebrates and participate in various invertebrate themed activities. At the end of the evening, all of the participants walked down a runway for a fashion show of everyone’s amazing costumes, but there was a catch: you had to locomote down the runway like the invertebrate you were dressed as! Prizes were given for several different categories such as: most anatomically correct, least effort, best locomotion, etc. It was the kind of fun evening only biologists could have thought up!

Invertebrate Ball 2013, I came dressed as a mesopelagic jellyfish!

Thursday, I traveled to Newport with the COSEE interns to tour Hatfield. We were given a tour of the grounds and even got to go into some of the NOAA and EPA labs, which were very cool. The Hatfield interns also showed us the projects they had been working on this summer. One of the interns was working on aging shrimp using their gastric mills which I became totally enthralled in!

The crowning jewel of this week, however, was my fabulous weekend that I spent with some of the other Sea Grant Scholars and Hatfield interns in the Redwoods National Park! On Friday evening, after work, we all drove down into California to the Jedediah Smith State Park. We took the 101, finally completing my dream of driving up and down the entire Oregon coast! Another check off my summer’s bucket list!

Redwoods National Park, talk about some impressive old growth forests!!

Saturday was filled with adventures! We started off the day with hiking and searching for the Grove of the Titans. While we found no Titans, we did have a lot of fun bushwhacking our way through the forest and seeing some impressive old growth forest. The redwoods are such an impressive sight, and if you’ve never seen them I would recommend making the trip; you would not regret it!

Relaxing up in the Redwoods with a few of the Sea Grant Summer Scholars!

We also decided to rent surf boards for a couple of days and headed out to Crescent City, CA to catch some waves. I had never surfed a day in my life but I was stoked to give it a go. Lucky for me, one of the Sea Grant Scholars, Pat Cousineau, had spent a large portion of his summers teaching others how to surf and was kind enough to give me lessons! After just a few tries I stood up and rode into shore without falling; who would have thought a Midwesterner could be a natural! (Though I can’t take all the credit, I had great instructor!) We spent hours out on the water and I loved every single second of it.

Surfing was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. There is something so relaxing and calming about it, not to mention the thrill of riding the waves! It was definitely a de-stressor that I was in much need of. I’m heartbroken that surfing is not a hobby I can continue in Indiana but if I ever move out to the coast, you can bet I’ll be buying a board!

Catching some gnarly waves for the first time!

Just two weeks left here in Oregon and I’m sure the time will fly! I wish it’d stand still, though, because I do not want to leave! Until next week, cheers!

Week 7: Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Biologist’s Life For Me!

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Another fantastic week in Charleston! This week we wrapped up the annual red rock crab tagging survey. We pulled our traps up at the end of the week and put them back into storage. It was crazy how at the beginning of the surveys we were catching on average 60 crabs per trap per day and by the end of the survey we were catching only four or five crabs per trap per day. Some of this was in part to our friendly neighborhood harbor seals that would ram our traps to get the bait and make it easier for crabs to escape. However, that is not the only reason behind the poor crabbing and that is the mystery we are now tasked with solving.

One of the last red rocks we marked.

The first part of the week was mainly data entry and analysis. Scott has been teaching me the magical world of Access and R throughout my time at the ODFW and this week put those skills to the test. Access is a Microsoft database program that allows us to better organize our data and create queries that can be used to table data in a form that is easier to analyze. We then use the program R to analyze all the data we’ve put into Access. R has a pretty steep learning curve and as someone with no experience with coding or programming I feel like what I’ve learned so far has been pretty extensive. It’s exciting to see data you’ve collected turn into readable and meaningful graphs.

Scott has also been putting my ArcGIS skills to good use. Scott is creating urchin harvest reports for the ODFW and has been using ArcGIS to analyze the data spatially. Between the two of us we were able to figure out some cool ways to map and analyze the urchin data.

On Thursday, Scott, Nick, and I felt we had enough of our share of office work for this week and decided it would be a perfect day to go fishing. I had never gone fishing in the open ocean before so to say I was excited was an understatement! Within an hour of being out to sea I had caught my first fish: a black rockfish. We were “bottom fishing” which is exactly what it sounds like: fishing along the ocean floor. The trick with bottom fishing is not catching on the bottom, which even experienced fishermen often have trouble with. Once you catch the sea bed there is a lot of organized chaos with unhooking yourself—jerking your line up hard in various directions and trying not to snap it—and an equal amount of shaking your fist at the ocean.

fishing

My mighty black rockfish!

Friday we took out the ODFW’s boat, Ophiodon, to release some basket stars the invertebrate biology professor wanted returned to sea, as well as to collect some spatial data on sport crabbing. When returning basket stars to sea you must first burp them by gently pressing on their disk. Air often gets trapped inside of basket stars which will cause them to float at the surface and will inevitably be eaten by gulls and other hungry sea birds; burping them ensures a (somewhat) safe journey to the ocean floor.

After returning the basket stars we began our data collection. We drove the Ophiodon throughout Coos Bay marking waypoints on the boat’s GPS where we found sport crab gear. We collect this data in order to be able to make informed decisions when companies want to alter the habitat, such as dredge it, so we can be aware of how much sport crabbing we would be affected.

And though only two days at sea isn’t really enough to determine whether I get seasick or not, I am happy to report that seasickness has not been an issue thus far! I’m so happy to finally to be getting my sea legs!

Returning basket stars to their deep sea home.

Saturday I went with a few students from OIMB to go hiking at Gold and Silver Falls. It was unbelievably beautiful. We first hiked to Silver Falls which was my favorite of the two because we were able to play under the waterfall! Gold Falls was also pretty amazing, as the trail leads you to the top of the waterfall and you can look over the edge, which was a surreal experience. We also took it upon ourselves to go off the beaten path and explore some unmarked areas; I definitely improved upon my climbing abilities during this hike! As always, with the end of this week I’ve been left exhausted but completely happy. Until next week!

 

Silver Falls

Playing underneath Silver Falls!