Tag Archives: shellfish

Fieldwork Galore

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Hello everyone!

I have officially finished my first two weeks as a Summer Scholar working for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on their SEACOR (Shellfish and Estuarine Assessment of Coastal Oregon) team! These first few weeks consisted of some intense fieldwork on the tide flats of Tillamook Bay (Figure 1). We are focused on two main projects this summer. The first, and most extensive, is shellfish and habitat data collection. The goal of this project is to figure out where recreationally significant clam species are in Tillamook Bay, as well as the abundance, biomass, and preferred habitat for each species. The four major target species are cockle clams (Figure 2), butter clams (Figure 3), gaper clams, and native littleneck clams. Data collected from this field season will later influence management decisions regarding the commercial harvest of bay clams in Tillamook. To get these data, we dig a bunch of holes in the tide flat and collect any critters we find! We’ve already dug up loads of clam, crab, and shrimp. Since we rely on low tides to get a lot of our work done, we’ve had many early mornings!

  • A map of Tillamook Bay in Garibaldi, Oregon, with the main tide flats and channels labeled.
    Figure 1. Map of the tide flats in Tillamook Bay. Map taken from the ODFW SEACOR website.
  • A hand holding a small cockle clam with water in the background.
    Figure 2. Emma Chesley holding a cockle clam. Photo taken by Emma Chesley on 6/17/2022.
  • A woman kneeling in shallow water, holding a butter clam and smiling at the camera.
    Figure 3. Emma Chesley holding a butter clam. Photo taken by Summer Henricksen on 6/15/2022.

The second smaller project involves using drones to map eelgrass beds. Since eelgrass acts as important nursery habitat for a variety of fish and invertebrates, the goal of this project is to see exactly where eelgrass is growing in the bay. This is a collaborative project with the Coastal Drone Academy which is based out of the Career Tech High School in Lincoln City. While the students operate the drones, the SEACOR team helps set up the GCPs (Ground Control Points) at known locations (Figure 4). GCPs allow us to overlay all our imagery data later on!

Figure 4. Emma Chesley (left) and Mitchell Gellhaus (right) setting up a GCP during low tide on an eelgrass bed. Photo taken by Morgan Bancroft on 6/16/2022.

A large portion of Oregon Sea Grant’s vision and mission involves studying the human dimensions of coastal and marine fisheries. Currently, there is a lot of controversy regarding the recreational and commercial harvest limits in Tillamook Bay. Data collected from this project influences harvest limits which can cause conflict between different fishing communities. This bay has not been surveyed by the SEACOR team since 2012, so there is a lot of interest (and some pressure) to get all the tide flats surveyed.

I am super excited to be a helping hand on this project in hopes we can collect lots of good data this field season! I’ve already learned so much about Oregon’s marine ecology as well as research in general. I can’t wait to see where the season takes us. Here’s to more gorgeous 4 A.M. mornings! ;)

More information regarding Oregon clamming can be found on SEACOR’s website: https://www.dfw.state.or.us/mrp/shellfish/seac or/index.asp

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.

IMG_0045

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.

 

 

Shellfish Initiative: Oregon’s efforts in a nationwide context

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When I last wrote about the Oregon Shellfish Initiative, the bill to create it was working its way through the 2015 legislative session. House Bill 2209 passed both houses and was signed by the Governor, and a whole new phase of work began. The bill created the Oregon Shellfish Task Force, an 11-member group charged with producing a report to the 2017 Legislature with recommendations related to shellfish in Oregon. The issues to be addressed by the Task Force include creating an efficient permitting process for shellfish growers–eliminating regulatory overlap and gaps where possible and encouraging communication among regulatory agencies, establishing best management practices for cultivated shellfish in Oregon, protection and restoration of wild and native shellfish stocks for conservation as well as recreational harvest, supporting ocean acidification research in collaboration with shellfish growers, and assessing the socioeconomic impacts of commercial and recreational shellfish on Oregon’s coastal communities.

Around this same time, my term as the Oregon Sea Grant Legislative Fellow was coming to an end. Fortunately for me, I was able to move across the street to the Governor’s staff offices and into the position previously occupied by the fabulous Kaity Goldsmith as the Natural Resource Policy Fellow working on ocean and coastal issues. Though the Governor’s office doesn’t have an official role with the Task Force, I’ve been able to support the work in an unofficial capacity, providing an informational presentation at the first meeting, and meeting with committee staff to provide background information and help ensure that interested stakeholders are at the table.

The Task Force convened in November and has been meeting approximately every other month. The fourth meeting is coming up next week, and this halfway point in their process seems like a good time to weigh in on their work to date. After an initial organizational and informational first meeting in November to bring up to speed those TF members who were new to the conversation, the January meeting was held at Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and focused on shellfish research in Oregon, particularly related to the effects of ocean acidification and changing ocean conditions on oysters and other bivalves. The meeting also included a tour of the research facilities at HMSC where Oregon State researchers Chris Langdon and Burke Hales research the effects of changing ocean chemistry, including Dr. Langdon’s Molluscan Broodstock Program which aims to select oyster broodstock that is resistant to increased CO2, temperature, and other fluctuations. The third meeting, held in Salem at the Capitol, focused on the role of federal and state agencies in the shellfish industry, as well as conservation concerns related to wildstock and native oysters. Representatives from several federal and state agencies discussed their role in permitting and regulating the shellfish industry in Oregon. It was a very productive meeting, with some agencies presenting efforts they are already making to simplify the permitting process, and several others bringing recommendations for opportunities to increase inter-agency collaboration and communication in order to make the process more efficient. Dr. Bill Hanshumaker, Oregon Sea Grant Chief Scientist, also presented to the Task Force on work Sea Grant will be doing to support development of a coordinated statewide program to support Oregon aquaculture, expansion of new and existing shellfish operations through reduced regulatory barriers, and supporting shellfish aquaculture operations in being more diversified and sustainable in the nearshore, offshore, and estuary environments.

On a related note, I was invited to represent Oregon in a Shellfish Initiatives session at the World Aquaculture Society triennial conference in Las Vegas in February. The session was kicked off by Michael Rubino, director of NOAA Fisheries Office of Aquaculture in Silver Spring, Maryland, who gave an update on the National Shellfish Initiative, introduced in 2011. The presentations then started with Alaska and proceeded south with Washington, Oregon, and California, and then to the Gulf states and up the East Coast including Maryland, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. It was fascinating to hear where other states are in their Shellfish Initiative process and how they’re approaching supporting their shellfish industries. It was also the first time I had a clear sense of where Oregon falls in this larger context, and I was pleased to note that we are right in step with the other states–not as far along as Washington, Maryland, and Rhode Island, all of whom started before we did, but further along than other states who haven’t had the support of legislators like our Coastal Caucus who have really helped drive this process.

I do work on other issues besides shellfish, but it’s been great to have the continuity with this effort for the last sixteen months or so, and to see the  results taking shape.

In my next post I’ll try to encapsulate the other things I’ve gotten to work on:  ocean acidification, marine debris, and the launch of the Oregon Ocean Science Trust.

 

Oregon Shellfish Initiative Update

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Working as the Sea Grant Legislative Fellow staffing Oregon’s Coastal Caucus, I was given the opportunity help craft House Bill 2209, the Oregon Shellfish Initiative. The intent of the Shellfish Initiative is to support Oregon’s oyster industry and preserve wild stocks of oysters for recreational harvest. The oyster industry in Oregon has already felt the impacts of ocean acidification and hypoxia, and a major component of the Initiative includes funding for continued research and monitoring capabilities.

I had the opportunity to visit Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and see Dr. Chris Langdon’s lab which is home to the Molluscan Broodstock Program. Dr. Langdon and his grad students have been breeding and selecting oyster lines for productivity in changing ocean chemistries. The Shellfish Initiative contains an appropriation for the MBP, as the legislature sees that this research is vital to understanding how different molluscan shellfish will respond to fluctuations in the carbon cycle, and helping the shellfish industry mitigate those impacts through broodstock that is best adapted to the conditions.

I was also able to tour the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts Bay, which works closely with Dr. Langdon’s lab. Whiskey Creek had experienced substantial larval die-offs, and it was only due to monitoring equipment that detected more than just simple pH measurements that they were able to determine the cause of the die-offs. Whiskey Creek is now able to monitor and adjust the chemistry of the seawater tanks in which they raise broodstock, which they supply to approximately 75% of oyster growers on the West Coast. The Shellfish Initiative also appropriates funds to Oregon State University for ongoing support of the research partnership with Whiskey Creek Hatchery.

These partnerships were in place before the creation of the Oregon Shellfish Initiative, but it’s been extremely gratifying to me to be working on legislation to fund this important research. The Initiative also increases funding to the Oregon Department of Agriculture for more frequent water quality monitoring in Tillamook Bay, with the aim of being able to reopen the bay for oyster harvest more quickly after a closure. If the Tillamook Bay pilot project is successful, the increased monitoring could be expanded to other estuaries in the future.

The Shellfish Initiative also convenes a Shellfish Task Force which will report back to the legislature by the 2016 short session with recommendations on how to continue to enhance and expand the commercial oyster industry while addressing the impacts of ocean acidification and hypoxia on both cultivated and wild shellfish. Ideally, Sea Grant will continue to play a role as a bridge between research, industry, agencies, and coastal communities as the Shellfish Initiative recommendations are implemented.

The bill had a successful public hearing and work session in the House Committee on Ag & Natural Resources, and will soon be heard in the Ways & Means Natural Resource Subcommittee. There is a national shellfish initiative, Washington has a shellfish initiative, and California has one in the works, so the timing seems perfect for the Oregon Shellfish Initiative, and all the parties are committed to moving it forward.

Watch this space for more updates!