This week I continued exploring the Oregon wilderness. Wednesday,\u00a0I headed back to Beaver Creek state park for an evening kayak tour of the marsh. The cool evening weather was perfect for kayaking. Our guides had the group pull up and float together at different points along the creek stopping to point out a beaver lodge, an eagles nest and the nutria, or river rats, that have begun to invade the creek.<\/p>\n
![\"Kayaking](\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/files\/2016\/08\/crater-lake1-300x225.jpg\")
Kayaking on Beaver Creek<\/p><\/div>\n
Nutria are an invasive species native to Latin America, introduced to North America in the 1930\u2019s in an attempt to bolster the fur trade that was running out of over-hunted beavers. Unfortunately, the nutria furs were not particularly appealing to consumers and they further threatened the beaver populations by both competing for habitat and damaging existing habitat. In Beaver Creek nutria\u00a0have started causing issues by consuming the vegetation that holds the marsh together.<\/p>\n
We spotted about 10 nutria during the tour and learned the key differences between the strikingly similar species. Nutria have white whiskers and lack the telltale beaver tail, while Beavers are nocturnal, more skittish and bob their heads when they swim. We were beginning to think we would leave beaver creek without seeing a single beaver,\u00a0luckily, one bobbed across our\u00a0path just as we were heading around the last bend. He gave a loud warning slap of his tail and then slipped underwater as we passed by.<\/p>\n
As far as work at the EPA goes, I had a slight change in research focus. My mentor asked me to look into upwelling conditions along the Pacific coast and see how seasonal pH values compare to the global average. Ocean and wind circulation patterns cause seasonal upwelling along the eastern boundary of northern hemisphere ocean basins. This process brings\u00a0low pH water to the surface. It is possible that organisms that have evolved in these comparatively lower pH conditions will be better adapted to survive low pH brought on by climate change. The pH data I have looked at so far indicate that pH values at the surface down to 200m are on average much lower than the global ocean mean pH of 8.1.<\/p>\n
![\"Picturesque](\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/files\/2016\/08\/beaver-creek1-300x225.jpg\")
Picturesque Crater Lake<\/p><\/div>\n
I spent the weekend exploring Crater Lake, Oregon\u2019s only National Park. After hiking down and going for a swim in the cool clear blue water we made our way\u00a0back up the chipmunk-lined switchbacks to fit a few more sites into our nature packed weekend. We hiked to Toketee Falls and lounged in the\u00a0Umpqua hot springs before heading back to Newport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week I continued exploring the Oregon wilderness. Wednesday,\u00a0I headed back to Beaver Creek state park for an evening kayak tour of the marsh. The cool evening weather was perfect for kayaking. Our guides had the group pull up and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7830,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7830"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3897,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions\/3897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}