It’s been a wonderful week! I eased into my position this week and because most of my work will require traveling and collecting data I spent most of my time learning how to go about this in the weeks ahead. My internship this summer is centered around figuring out how the  implementation of new marine reserves will affect the people in the communities surrounding them. I will be focusing on three locations along the coast; Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua, and Pacific City. Cascade Head and Cape Perpetua are slated to become Marine Reserves in combination with Marine Protected Areas in 2014. However, before these reserves go into effect, it is required that the government collect two years of baseline data on the use, economic implications, and human dimensions of the reserve, and this is where my job comes into play this summer.

My job is to help gather the baseline data in the form of pressure counts, local business interviews, and assistance with recreational fishing surveys. For the pressure counts, I will actually travel to the future marine reserve and count the number of visitors at the reserve each day. I will repeat this three times per day to give the government an idea of how many people use the area. I already traveled with my mentor, Melissa to Cape Perpetua and it is absolutely breathtaking! I couldn’t be happier to have my office this summer be the best beaches and vistas that Oregon has to offer. In between the pressure counts I plan to head over to local businesses in the area and interview them about their awareness and opinions of the proposed marine reserves.

I am also getting along really well with my mentor, Melissa Murphy. She graduated with the same degree as me from Oregon State (Environmental, Economics, and Policy) so I feel like it will be really helpful for me to get insight on her career path. Likewise, Melissa is very excited to have another economist in the office, because she claims that most everyone else in the Oregon Department of Wildlife are biologists and they don’t always see where she is coming from. While the people in the office work hard, they are also very relaxed and like to have fun. Melissa’s boss even offered to take me out surfing, she says they like to have “board meetings”….haha

Since we didn’t do pressure counts this week, I had some extra time to get settled in and explore the coast. I went hiking at Cape Perpetua, tide-pooling at Strawberry Hill, and slid down the sand dunes in Florence. I can’t wait to start pressure counts and see more of the coast in the weeks ahead!