Blog #4

Neal Tyson

The past couple weeks have been almost entirely in the office. Yet somehow these weeks are just flying by. I’ve never been one to see myself working in an office setting. I get antsy when I sit for too long and am almost constantly longing to be out in the field. But I guess when you find a purpose in the writing and are writing about fascinating topics it ain’t so bad. I would say 90% of my time, these past couple of weeks, have been dedicated to creating stories to share to fishers, tourists, environmentalists and the general public about Oregon’s marine reserves. All in hopes to write a story that peaks someone’s interests to get them involved in our research or become more knowledgeable about all the amazing things below the surface. Before I can even begin to write a blog post or a social media post there is naturally a research process. My focus has almost always been on tropical reefs in the South Pacific… a slightly different ecosystem to Oregon’s cold, rough, and rocky coastal waters. Although I will say I prefer the bright corals and visibility higher than 5 feet, its been pretty wicked learning about a new area. Stories so far have included biographies on species found in the Oregon marine reserves (mainly rockfish, who get wicked old??), explanations of research techniques and highlights of any super sick stuff going on.

I’ve never done this science communications thing and it definitely takes a bit of getting used to. My mentor Kelsey has been giving me some stuff to keep in mind in mind while I’m writing these stories:

• That because we have such a large audience it can be really easy to alienate a certain section. By taking a neutral position based off of what we see in the reserves we can avoid pissing off anybody who disagrees or feels alienated.
• As a government agency we are here to state facts, peak interests and inform, not to take a position on a subject.
• As we deal with scientific research, it’s pretty important to fact check things. We don’t want to be accused of spreading any fake news by any political groups and/or individuals.
• Make sure it is relatable. By having content that is relatable to our audiences (i.e. talk about local fisheries, things they may have experienced at the reserves or questions they may have), they can find connections with the research and the work that we are doing in the reserves.
• Make sure that the content is primarily and almost entirely focused on the marine reserves. As part of the overarching Department of Fish and Wildlife, it’s pretty easy to step on other department’s toes on their content. By keeping content directly related to the marine reserves we are able to avoid that.

The struggles are real, and they’re great teachers

I’ve always wanted to go into behavior change and environmental campaign planning. Science communication is definitely a part of those topics, but I haven’t done much if any in that field. So there has definitely been some getting used to during this internship where the goal has mainly just been to educate rather than to persuade.

Other struggles have stemmed from learning how government works. I didn’t see a reason why we shouldn’t be covering topics that are related to the marine reserves. I figured creating a story on a topic that another department works on and one that is related to the marine reserves would serve both departments. In my mind as along as we are spreading the same message and pointing people in the right direction to find out more, then it’d be all good. But, I’m starting to understand why sometimes that isn’t feasible/the best option. By focusing our content on specifically what we are doing (our research, our researchers, specific sightings that we have collected), we highlight our work and become more in the spotlight of the communities’ focus. Spreading our message out to incorporate topics that are related to the reserves (like a story on trash in our waterways/beach clean ups) we take some of that spotlight away from our specific work, while also taking some of that spotlight away from those who focus on that work (ODFW park services).

At least that is my understanding of it at the moment… I could be wrong, I’m very much still figuring it out. There is always more to learn from experience, plenty more questions to ask and mistakes to make.

Good things yeeeeah!

While creating some of this content is still a rough work in progress coming from a persuasion background (progress that is getting better), I’ve been making good use of some of the techniques I’ve learned!

One of the techniques that has been really easy and seems to be pretty effective is the use of relatable visual comparisons. One of my favorites has been about how old the Yellow Eye Rockfish gets:

“Studies have dated these beautiful fish to living well over 100 years old, with maximum age at 147 years. Some of these fish would have been exiting their awkward teenage years by the time Washington was granted statehood back in 1889”

A comparison like that really puts that age in perspective. Man, fish are so cool.

Another one of my favorites talks about the maximum size of the Giant Pacific Octopus in terms of Shaquile O’Neals:

“The largest Giant Pacific Octopus ever recorded was 30 feet from arm to arm and over 600 pounds! That means they were the length of 4 Shaquille O’Neal’s head to toe and twice as heavy (he’s a big guy). However, the average adult will grow to “only” 16 feet in length and 110 pounds.”

I have also been attempting to use anthropomorphism, to apply humanistic traits to fish or habitats. For example associating adjectives often applied to humans, like beautiful, sleepy or hungry to fish or other species. Other ways include comparing the behaviors of certain species to human behaviors, like species hiding beneath the kelp bed at night, similar to humans sleeping in bed. Another example is relating how Wolf Eels mate for life, occupy the same cave and carefully care for their eggs until they hatch and comparing that to how humans live. This is all in the hope that the audience can connect more with the species and become more empathetic and think about them in a more connected way.

Anyway, keep an eye out on Oregonmarinereserves.com and our (new) social medias @oregonmarinereserves (not actually out yet) these next few months to see some quality relatable marine reserves content!