Category Archives: news

Port Orford launches national tour of Ocean Frontiers film

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PORT ORFORD  – Ocean Frontiers, a new feature-length film about ocean management and conservation, will launch its national tour in Port Orford,  which stars in the film as an example of how science and fishing can work together to manage marine resources.

The debut screening starts at 5 pm Saturday, Feb. 11 at the Savoy Theatre in downtown Port Orford. followed by a reception in the nearby Community Building, with Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber,  First Lady Cylvia Hayes, representatives of state and local government and members of the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT) expected to attend. A second screening is scheduled for  4 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets are $10 and are available only online, at www.oceanfrontiersportorford.eventbrite.com

The film will also be shown at the Performing Arts Center in Newport at 7 pm Feb. 22.

Port Orford is one of several US coastal communities featured in the 80-minute film, which tracks the evolution of marine resource management from a “maximum allowable catch” approach to a growing recognition that resources are finite, and need to be managed for the future as well as the present. The film explores the shift toward  ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning tools that rely on science, and an informed and engaged public. Communities from the Pacific Northwest to Boston Harbor, the Florida Keys, the Gulf of Mexico and even the cornfields of Iowa are featured.

POORT figures prominently in the film as an example of how resource users,  scientists, conservationists and others can work together to help understand, protect and manage ocean areas for the benefit of the resource – and the people who depend on it. Ongoing collaboration between fishermen and scientists in the south coast community was a strong factor in the state’s decision to establish one of Oregon’s first marine reserves at Redfish Rocks, just off  Port Orford.

Oregon Sea Grant has supported the community-based effort since its early days, helping bring fishermen and scientists together and providing information and assistance as the group grew and evolved. Sea Grant helped the community design and conduct surveys and interviews that let the town  build its first  long-form community profile to give resource managers greater insight into how fisheries reach deep into the community’s social and economic life. The format and interview has since been applied to other Oregon coastal towns, and is proving to be a model for communities  elsewhere in the US.

Learn more:

Watch a 10-minute trailer for the film:

Follow the R/V Oceanus on her voyage to Oregon

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R/V Oceanus departing WHOI, Jan. 25The newest addition to Oregon State University’s research fleet, the R/V Oceanus, entered the Panama Canal today to make the transit from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, marking roughly the mid-point of the trip from her former home port at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to her new home at OSU’s docks in Newport, Oregon.

You can follow the trip via a live Webcam, courtesy of OSU Information Services, at

http://webcam.oregonstate.edu/oceanus/

The image and map update every few minutes, as long as the ship’s satellite uplink permits. An attached map even tracks the ship’s position by latitude and longitude (although the “larger view” map is still labeled with the name of the R/V Wecoma, the vessel the Oceanus will replace).

The Oceanus left Woods Hole on Jan. 25, and is expected to arrive in Newport in mid-February.

(Photo by S. Sutherland)

Sea Grant research: learning-based tourism could spur major growth in travel industry

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Children learn about octopuses at HMSC Visitor CenterNew research suggests that major growth in the travel, leisure and tourism industry in the coming century may be possible as more people begin to define recreation as a learning and educational opportunity — a way to explore new ideas and cultures, art, science and history.

But in a recent study published in the Annals of Tourism Research, John Falk, Oregon Sea Grant Professor of Free-Choice Learning, says that increasingly affluent and educated people around the world are ready to see travel in less conventional ways, and that lifelong learning and personal enrichment can compete favorably with sandy beaches or thrill rides.

“The idea of travel as a learning experience isn’t new, it’s been around a long time,” said John Falk, an international leader in the free-choice learning movement. Falk is among a group of Sea Grant professionals focusing their research on how people learn in their free time – through travel, in museums and aquariums, and through other experiences outside conventional classrooms.

At OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Dr. Shawn Rowe and colleagues are working under a $2.6 million National Science Foundation grant to create a Free-Choice Learning Laboratory, using high-tech tools to observe and analyze use of the Center’s public aquarium exhibits and what people take away from them.

Falk, meanwhile, holds one of two Free-Choice Learning professorships established by Sea Grant with the OSU Department of Science and Mathematics Education, which has developed a masters’ degree program in the emerging discipline.

Writing in the Annals of Tourism Research, Falk and his partners from the University of Queensland, Australia explore travel as part of a  “life-long and life-wide” learning experience, tracking the history of travel-for-learning back through the centuries, and examining how the experience has grown and changed in recent times.

“You’re already seeing many tour operators and travel agencies offer educational opportunities, things like whale watching, ecotourism,” Falk is quoted as saying in an article about the new research published today in Science Daily. “The National Park Service does a great job with its resources, teaching people about science, geology and history. The push for more international travel experiences as a part of formal education for students is an outgrowth of this concept.

“We’re convinced this is just the beginning of a major shift in how people want to spend their leisure time, and one that could have important implications for intellectual and cultural growth around the world.”

Learn more:

New Website for Oregon Sea Grant

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New Sea Grant WebsiteOregon Sea Grant has a brand new Website, with fresh content and a host of special features.

Program director Steve Brandt called it “a modern, engaging site that reflects Sea Grant’s mission and our status as an integrated program of research, education and public engagement.”

Visitors will find current news about Sea Grant’s ocean and coastal science initiatives, announcements of grant and fellowship opportunities, and profiles of Sea Grant-supported research and student scholars. Content ranges from short videos about marine safety and seafood buying  to in-depth features about critical  topics such as tsunami and climate change preparedness, marine spatial planning and invasive species.

The site provides access to hundreds of Sea Grant publications and videos – many of them free.

The site is built on the Drupal content management system, and was developed by Sea Grant communications, led by webmaster Pat Kight,  in cooperation with Oregon State University’s Web Communications and Central Web Services units.

 

 

Oregon floods: fish should fare better than people

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Calapooia River flooding near Albany, Jan. 20, 2012Heavy rain and melting snowpack that flooded Western Oregon last week turned creeks and rivers into broad, brown torrents that might look like bad news for fish. But an Oregon Sea Grant fisheries specialist says his research suggests the opposite.

Guillermo Giannico, a research professor in Oregon State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, has conducted studies showing that fish – especially native species – can find refuge and food in flooded grass-seed fields.

Giannico’s research grew out of a project by fellow OSU researcher Stan Gregory to map the historic path of the Willamette River. The Willamette and its many tributaries once were more complex, braided streams. Multiple channels dispersed the impact of flooding, but dams, housing developments and forest transition have since funneled many rivers into single channels that run fast and furious during floods.

Giannico and others wondered how fish adapted to the change. Floods have happened for thousands of years, he said, and fish traditionally escaped high water in the main river stems by moving to off-channel habitat.

Turns out they still do. During seasonal floods, researchers took a look at ditches, low-lying farmland and other spots that are above water most of the year. To their surprise, they found 14 fish species — 11 of them native.

“That’s high diversity for this area, more than I would have bet we were going to get,” Giannico said.

Giannico noted a couple implications from the findings. Salmon, steelhead and other native fish, he said, are keenly tuned to changes in light and water temperature, and move to sheltering habitat — even if it turns out to be a flooded grass seed field. Invasive fish, often warm-water species, don’t get it. They’re unable to respond to the clues. As a result, native fish get a temporary break from predation and competition for food.

“Floods have always been a dynamic part of the system, much the same way that snow is for elk in Yellowstone,” said Giannico  “Over time, animals will adapt to get the most out of their habitat. We have found that native fish have adjusted their behavior to use these floodplains, mostly in agricultural lands, to great benefit.”

Read more:

Sea Grant coastal erosion, climate work in Terra

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High waves on the Oregon coastIncreasing winter storms since the 1980s have been sending higher, harder waves crashing into the Oregon coast, cutting away at seacliffs, roads and infrastructure in an area never known for its seismic stability. Scientists say the increased storm activity is consistent with predictions for the sorts of hazards the world’s coastlines will face as an effect of changing climate.

In Oregon, Sea Grant is partnering with communities and researchers to better understand the growing risks of coastal erosion, and to help counties and towns come up with plans for adapting to changes happening now, and predicted for the future.

In the latest issue of Terra, Oregon State University’s research magazine, Nick Houtman focuses on coastal hazard research and public engagement, highlighting the work Oregon Sea Grant is doing with Tillamook County and the town of Neskowin, where coastal hazards specialist Pat Corcoran has been working with a local group to develop the state’s first coastal hazards action plan.

Read the full article at Terra online

Goodbye, Wecoma; hello, Oceanus

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R/V WecomaNEWPORT – The Research Vessel Wecoma, which has been serving Oregon State University marine scientists for more than 35 years, is being retired from service and replaced with a somewhat smaller ship from the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System fleet.

The 184-foot Wecoma made her last cruise in November; her replacement, the Oceanus, is expected to dock in Newport in February, after making the long voyage from her former port at the Woods Hole National Oceanographic Institute on the East Coast, down through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast to Oregon. A retirement celebration for the Wecoma will be held at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport in March.

Both vessels are owned by the National Science Foundation, and operated by the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System, a consortium of 60 academic research institutions that operate 16 vessels around the country.

Mark Abbott, dean of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at OSU, had approached the National Science Foundation for  a rapid analysis of the two ships to see which one would be more cost-effective to operate over the next several years.  A team of technicians returned the verdict – a strong recommendation for the 177-foot Oceanus – after discovering some problems with corrosion and other issues with the Wecoma.

R/V Oceanus“There are a few differences in science capabilities,” Abbott said, “but Oceanus is very capable and will be more cost-effective to operate over the next five to 10 years, at which point we hope to have a new ship.’

Read the full story from OSU News & Research Information

Rising ocean temperatures: More male fish, fewer females?

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Warming oceans could cause some fish species to produce too many males – and too few females – to sustain their populations, say scientists in Spain and Oregon.

Time magazine reports that Francesc Piferrer and other scientists working at Barcelona’s Institute of Marine Sciences have proved that rising water temperatures caused some species of fish to produce a disproportionate ratio of males to females, through a mechanism called epigenesis.

Unlike humans, whose sex is determined at fertilization by combinations of chromosomes from their parents, sex differentiation in most fish occurs during embryonic development. And in some species, the trigger that causes some fish to develop ovaries (and thus become female) turns out to be temperature-linked. Piferrer’s research suggests that a 3°C or 4°C temperature increase (roughly 37-39°F) could cause those species to go from a roughly 50-50 male-female ration to 80 percent male – bad news for the species’ survival.

Oregon State University fish biologist Scott Heppell, who studies rockfish and other species with Oregon Sea Grant support, reports that some canary rockfish populations are already showing more males than females. Although there are too many variables, thus far, for scientists to pinpoint the cause, Heppell says “The data shows a skew toward males, and the modeling shows that if this skew is real, then the population is in more trouble.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103333,00.html#ixzz1iPhKVdNS

 

Oregon Coast Quests featured in Oregon Coast Today

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Oregon Sea Grant’s popular “Oregon Coast Quests” are the subject of an article in the October 28, 2011, edition of the weekly newspaper Oregon Coast Today.

Oregon Sea Grant receives $2.6 million NSF grant for learning research

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Oregon Sea Grant director Stephen Brandt announced the award of a $2.6 million, five-year, National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to support the creation of a free-choice learning lab at the Hatfield Marine Science Center Visitor Center in Newport. The grant is the largest single research award to Oregon Sea Grant in its 40-year history and among the largest ever awarded to a Sea Grant program nationwide.  Free-choice learning is the study of how people learn across the lifespan and across contexts where they have choice and control over that learning.

“Studying how people learn is critical to Sea Grant because it can help us to understand how best to communicate with the diverse public audiences who rely on us for research and education related to ocean and aquatic issues,” Brandt said.

The research project will be led by Shawn Rowe, a faculty member in both Sea Grant and the OSU College of Education.

Read the entire OSU news release.

Oregon Sea Grant free-choice learning researcher, Shawn Rowe, is leader of the new NSF research grant that will spawn new learning innovations at the Hatfield Marine Science Center (pictured), where 150,000 visit each year.