Author Archives: kightp

About kightp

Pat Kight is the web and digital media specialist for Oregon Sea Grant at Oregon State University.

Astoria becomes world surimi capital

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Jae ParkEver wondered about the crab-flavored fish protein in your seafood sandwich, “crab” salad or California sushi roll?

It’s surimi, a fish protein paste made into various shellfish-flavored products.

Earlier this month, Oregon State University’s Seafood Lab on Marine Drive hosted the 20th annual Surimi School, a gathering of global industry representatives and researchers that made Astoria for one week the epicenter of expertise on the globally popular, gelatinous fish protein you’ve likely had in one form or another.

About 40 students from surimi plants, surimi seafood (finished product) plants and others from accessory industries attended lectures and took part in surimi labs.

Jae Park, an OSU professor seen as the pre-eminent expert on surimi, founded the OSU Surimi Technology School in 1993 in Astoria. He started similar institutes in Bangkok in 1996 and in Paris in 1999.

For most of the school’s first decade, Oregon Sea Grant invested in the surimi program’s development and success with grants to support Park’s research into ways to improve the texture of surimi, and with direct contributions to the surimi school. A number of Park’s research publications were published by Sea Grant as well.

“The academic and industry languages are different,” said Park. “With that mentality, I found there was a great need to build industry-academia partnerships.”

His answer has been to bring in academic and industry experts from around the world to Astoria every May for the last 20 years, sharing knowledge between the two groups and enhancing everyone’s understanding of the ever-changing surimi industry.

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Hatchery salmon threaten wild populations, scientists say

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A newly published collection of more than 20 studies by leading university scientists and government fishery researchers in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Russia and Japan provides mounting evidence that salmon raised in man-made hatcheries can harm wild salmon through competition for food and habitat.

“The genetic effects of mixing hatchery fish with wild populations have been well-documented,” says journal editor David Noakes* from Oregon State University. “But until now the ecological effects were largely hypothetical. Now we know the problems are real and warrant more attention from fisheries managers.”

The research volume, published in the May issue of Environmental Biology of Fishes, brings together 23 peer-reviewed, independent studies carried out across the entire range of Pacific salmon, including some of the first studies describing the impact of hatcheries on wild salmon populations in Japan and Russia.

The studies provide new evidence that fast-growing hatchery fish compete with wild fish for food and habitat in the ocean as well as in the rivers where they return to spawn. The research also raises questions about whether the ocean can supply enough food to support future increases in hatchery fish while still sustaining the productivity of wild salmon.

“This isn’t just an isolated issue,” says Pete Rand, a biologist at the Wild Salmon Center and a guest editor of the publication. “What we’re seeing here in example after example is growing scientific evidence that hatchery fish can actually edge out wild populations.”

Losing wild fish would mean losing the genetic diversity that has allowed salmon to survive for centuries. Unlike hatchery fish, wild salmon populations have a range of highly specialized adaptations to the natural environment. These adaptations not only help them return to their home streams to spawn, but also increase their ability to withstand environmental changes like increases in ocean temperature and extreme variations in stream flows. Hatchery fish, as the name implies, are hatched from eggs fertilized in a controlled environment and raised in captivity until they are big enough to release into the natural environment. They lack the genetic diversity of wild fish that provides insurance against fisheries collapses.

* David Noakes is receiving Oregon Sea Grant support for current research into geomagnetic imprinting and homing in salmon and steelhead

Learn more:

What’s fresh on the Oregon coast?

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Dockside salesA highlight of visiting the Oregon coast is bringing home seafood that’s just about as fresh as it gets.

But how do you know what’s in season when you’re there? Regulatory fishing seasons change from year to year, and it can be hard for a lay person to keep track of them.

Sea Grant Extension agent Kaety Hildenbrand has compiled her annual guide to “What’s Fresh on the Oregon Coast”, detailing the seasons for the most popular seafood caught off our shores: Salmon, halibut, Dungeness crab, albacore tuna, pink shrimp, flounder, sole and lingcod.

You can check the list on our Website, and download a free, printable .pdf to tuck into your travel kit.

While you’re at it, check out Kaety’s video on the Oregon Sea Grant YouTube channel, explaining what consumers should look for when buying fish straight off the boat:

Take a quick survey, get a reward

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Have you read, viewed or otherwise used one or more of Oregon Sea Grant’s publications and videos during the past year? Then we could use your help.

We’d like you to take part in a brief, online survey. It should take about five minutes to complete.

For the first 25 US residents* who complete the survey we will offer your choice of

Ready?

Follow this link to Survey Monkey.

* Not including Sea Grant employees. Sorry, but we cannot ship publications and videos outside the US.

Testing berth to aid wave energy research, development

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Ocean Sentinel platformThis summer, a boxy yellow platform called the Ocean Sentinel will anchor in heavy swells off the Oregon coast and help open a new stage in the effort to turn wave energy into usable electricity.

Built at a cost of $1.5 million, the rugged craft will loosen a bottleneck that has dogged the startup wave-energy industry: Getting equipment out of the lab and tested in the brutal conditions of the open ocean.

Europe has a similar device, but the Oregon berth is the first mobile platform to be deployed in U.S. waters and made available for use by small firms that couldn’t afford to do testing in any other way.

“This testing capability is a first for wave energy,” said Annette von Jouanne, a professor of electrical engineering at Oregon State University (OSU) who came up with the idea.

The platform is a project of the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Project, a joint effort between OSU, Washington State University and the US Department of Energy. It is one of three such centers established around the US to aid in research and development in the fledgling wave/tidal energy field. It is expected to be fully deployed late this year.

Oregon Sea Grant, which helped fund von Jouanne’s early proof-of-concept research, continues to work with researchers, developers and coastal communities to work through questions and issues surrounding marine renewable energy, from siting to possible conflicts with commercial fishing.

Learn more:

OSU unveils new maps of Oregon ocean

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Map of sea floor off Cape AragoCORVALLIS – After more than two years of intense field work and digital cartography, researchers have unveiled new maps of the seafloor off Oregon that cover more than half of the state’s territorial waters – a collaborative project that will provide new data for scientists, marine spatial planners, and the fishing industry.

The most immediate benefit will be improved tsunami inundation modeling for the Oregon coast, according to Chris Goldfinger, director of the Active Tectonics and Seafloor Mapping Laboratory at Oregon State University, who led much of the field work.

“Understanding the nature of Oregon’s Territorial Sea is critical to sustaining sport and commercial fisheries, coastal tourism, the future of wave energy, and a range of other ocean-derived ecosystem services valued by Oregonians,” Goldfinger said. “The most immediate focus, though, is the threat posed by a major tsunami.

“Knowing what lies beneath the surface of coastal waters will allow much more accurate predictions of how a tsunami will propagate as it comes ashore,” he added. “We’ve also found and mapped a number of unknown reefs and other new features we’re just starting to investigate, now that the processing work is done.”

The mapping project was a collaborative effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, David Evans and Associations, and Fugro. It was funded by NOAA and the Oregon Department of State Lands.

The primary mapping platform was the vessel Pacific Storm, operated by the OSU Marine Mammal Institute. Oregon-based fishing vessels taking part in Oregon Sea Grant’s Scientist and Fisherman Exchange program – the F/V Michelle Ann, the F/V Delma Ann, and the F/V Miss Linda – assisted with ground truth sampling and video surveys.

NOAA, FEMA urge “Be a Force of Nature”

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Be a Force of Nature - Pledge to Prepare“Be a Force of Nature” is the theme of the first-ever National Severe Weather Preparedness Week, starting this Sunday (Earth Day) and continuing through April 28.

The campaign is a joint effort by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Daily themes will  target public awareness about severe weather hazards and encourage people to get prepared:

  • Monday: Know Your Risk
  • Tuesday: Make a Plan
  • Wednesday: Build a Kit
  • Thursday: Get a NOAA Weather Radio
  • Friday: Be an example for others to follow

Full details – including downloadable posters, media PSAs and emergency preparedness kit checklists – can be found on NOAA’s Weather-Ready Nation Website.

While the effort focuses on hurricanes, tornadoes and other catastrophic storms less common in the Pacific Northwest, Oregonians can still learn from the campaign, according to Patrick Corcoran, Oregon Sea Grant’s coastal hazards specialist.

In this region, coastal storms generally occur from November to March – but recent trends have shown earlier dates for the first storm and later dates for the last storm of the season. And offshore buoys have measured increasingly higher waves during winter storms over the past 30 years. A result has been more impacts by storms on people and infrastructure, from homes to highways.

“Some homes on cliff-backed beaches have found themselves precariously closer to the edge,” said Corcoran. “A few have fallen into the sea. Other properties in lower areas with dune-backed beaches are experiencing larger storm waves, overtopping of shore protection structures, and an overall increase in erosion.”

Corcoran pointed out that although the Northwest is generally spared from tornadoes and hurricane-strength storms, they can happen – and the region is also prone to seismic disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis.

“The steps NOAA recommends to prepare for catastrophic storms make good sense for the types of disasters we in the Northwest face, too,” he said.

Learn more:

Sea Grant’s Pat Corcoran on PBS News Hour tonight

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Patrick Corcoran, Oregon Sea Grant’s coastal hazards specialist and an expert on coastal earthquake and tsunami preparedness in the Pacific Northwest, appears on tonight’s edition of the PBS Newshour as part of a piece titled “Risky Business in the Pacific Northwest.”

The report, by Newshour’s Tom Bearden reports on efforts to better understand liquefaction, a phenomenon that causes sandy soils to turn to liquid when a powerful earthquake strikes.  Liquefaction can cause untold damage and devastation, and Bearden talks about how Oregon scientists are trying to learn more about what causes it, and what happens:

Miss it on TV? Here’s the video:

Watch Risky Business in the Northwest on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

 

 

 

 

OSU research finds “definitive” link between acidification and oyster collapse

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Researchers at Oregon State University have definitively linked an increase in ocean acidification to the collapse of oyster seed production at a commercial oyster hatchery in Oregon, where larval growth had declined to a level considered by the owners to be “non-economically viable.”

A study published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography found that elevated seawater carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, resulting in more corrosive ocean water, inhibited the larval oysters from developing shells and growing at a pace that would make commercial production cost-effective.

As atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, the scientists say, this may serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine for other ocean acidification impacts on shellfish.

“This is one of the first times that we have been able to show how ocean acidification affects oyster larval development at a critical life stage,” said Burke Hales, an OSU chemical oceanographer and co-author on the study. “The predicted rise of atmospheric CO2 in the next two to three decades may push oyster larval growth past the break-even point in terms of production.”

The owners of Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery at Oregon’s Netarts Bay began experiencing a decline in oyster seed production several years ago, and looked at potential causes including low oxygen and pathogenic bacteria. Alan Barton, who works at the hatchery and is an author on the journal article, was able to eliminate those potential causes and shifted his focus to acidification.

Barton sent samples to OSU and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory for analysis. Their ensuing study clearly linked the production failures to the CO2 levels in the water in which the larval oysters are spawned and spend the first 24 hours of their lives, the critical time when they develop from fertilized eggs to swimming larvae, and build their initial shells.

“The early growth stage for oysters is particularly sensitive to the carbonate chemistry of the water,” said George Waldbusser, a benthic ecologist in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “As the water becomes more acidified, it affects the formation of calcium carbonate, the mineral of which the shell material consists. As the CO2 goes up, the mineral stability goes down, ultimately leading to reduced growth or mortality.”

Oregon Sea Grant, which has long supported research into shellfish propagation and health,  is currently  investing $175,000 in further research by Waldbrusser, Hales and OSU shellfish scientist Chris Langdon to develop Web-based tools shellfish growers, resource managers and others can use to better understand whether acidification is threatening specific shellfish stocks.

Oregon Sea Grant video – NOAA’s Richard Feely explains the basics of ocean acidification:

(Part 1 of 3; view  part 2 and part 3 on our Website.)

Free choice learning on tap in Newport

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Shawn Rowe NEWPORT –  Dr. Shawn Rowe, Oregon Sea Grant’s marine education learning specialist, is the scientist on tap at Rogue Ales’ Brewer’s on the Bay this Friday evening, talking about how people learn science outside the conventional classroom.

The event, part of the Science on Tap series sponsored by the brewpub and OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, is free and family-friendly. Doors open at 5:30 pm; food and beverages are available for purchase.

Rowe heads the Free-Choice Learning Lab at the HMSC Visitor Center, where he is working under a $2.6 million National Science Foundation grant to create  a state-of-the-art laboratory to study how people learn about science in aquariums, museums and other venues. The grant is the largest single research award to Oregon Sea Grant in its 40-year history and among the largest ever made to a Sea Grant program nationwide.

Dr. Shawn Rowe’s team is exploring the use of networked computers, face-recognition , real-time evaluation tools and other emerging technologies to get a deeper understanding of  what and how visitors learn in places like the HMSC.

Speaking with Rowe will be Nancy Steinberg, a biologist and longtime public outreach specialist who is currently involved in the Yaquina Bay Ocean Observing Initiative, an effort to make Newport a hub for ocean observing science in the Pacific Northwest.