Category Archives: Summer Scholars

Starting Fieldwork

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It has been another great week here in Oregon!  I’ve done so much and cannot believe I have already been here for two weeks. These past few days were filled with fieldwork at the EPA. Myself along with two researchers started one of our experiments in the Yaquina Estuary here in Newport on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then on Thursday we traveled and hour north to Pacific City, Oregon to collect data on the Nestucca Estuary and on Friday we went three hours south to Bandon, Oregon to do the same data collection on the Bandon Marsh.

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It was a week full of very long days, but it was great to be doing fieldwork. I had never done any fieldwork before and didn’t know what to expect, but I really enjoyed it. Plus, I got to ride in the EPA’s hovercraft which was pretty awesome! In the Yaquina Estuary we placed clear boxes in the sediment to see the different rates of soil oxidation, while in Nestucca and Bandon we measured how quickly sediments have been building up over the past few years.

In addition to that, I cleaned and measured the macro-algae that was covering the sites where our clear boxes were placed in the Yaquina Estuary. We are interested in seeing how much macro-algae is on the estuary and if that correlates to the oxidation layer in the sediment.  After collecting the algae from our plots in the estuary I had to wash off the sediment and weigh it to see how much we had collected. During this process I realized how great it is to be working at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. While I was cleaning off my algae another researcher came into the lab to do her work. She turned out to be a professor from Oregon State University and an expert on algae who, just last week, gave a presentation at Hatfield about the algae that comes to the Oregon Coast on the debris from the Japanese tsunami. She has been responsible for collecting and identifying the foreign species. We were able to share the same workspace and we talked for about two hours all about marine science. It was a great experience and made me realize how lucky I am to be working at such a unique and intellectual place.

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This week wasn’t all about the work, however. Yesterday, I traveled south of Newport to Waldport where, along with some fellow residents, I collected fresh clams and mussels straight from the water! We also went to Cape Perpetua and Devil’s Churn, both of which over look the Pacific and have rocks the create huge waves.  It was so beautiful to be perched up above the beach and to look out and only see the ocean.

Next week I am looking forward to spending the 4th of July along the Oregon Coast and hope to do some more sight seeing around the area.

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Off to a Great Start!

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My first full week in Bandon began with a surprise visit from my beloved school’s mascot!  After setting eyes on this gorgeous gastropod, I knew it was going to be a good week…

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After a full week in the office I think I’m starting to get a better handle on what it is I will be helping Wild Rivers Coast Alliance with in the next ten weeks.  For the past week and a half my main priority has been to create a master database that details what activities, lodging, restaurants, shops, and places to visit, are available to tourists in each of the four cities that WRCA works with (Bandon, Brookings, Gold Beach, and Port Orford.)  Thus far what I have learned from my research is that while each city advertises many places to stay and eat, most of the four towns are seriously lacking when it comes down to detailing what there is to do (i.e. such as whale watching, hiking, and kayaking).  In the end, all the information I have been collecting will eventually be input into Travel Oregon’s website.  To me this is particularly exciting because I want to reinforce the knowledge out there that one of the main reasons people should visit Oregon is to take advantage of the astounding environment!  My hope is that by strengthening the information that’s out there about activities to do in nature, each city will be able to not only increase their sustainable ecotourism, but educate locals and tourists alike about each particular habitat, species, and conservation issue relevant to the coast.

In the coming week I believe I will be meeting with some city officials from the representative four cities to fine tune the information I have collected, as well as determine what the best way is to implement any desired changes.  I also plan on continuing my research on what South Coast Oregon’s presence is in facebook, twitter, and smartphone applications; because we live in a society that is so driven by technology and instant access to information I believe this is a great chance to captivate and educate!

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This past weekend we had, without doubt, the best weather since I’ve been here!  So with warm weather, sunny skies, and some visiting friends I set out again to explore Oregon’s charismatic South Coast.  Since my position as a coastal tourism intern requires me to research what the towns of Bandon, Brookings, Port Orford, and Gold Beach have to offer (such as various activities, restaurants, etc.) I have decided that I should probably experience them myself; after all, why should I expect other people to be interested in all these places if I myself haven’t even been to them?

My day began at the Bandon Baking Company and Deli, which had cinnamon rolls that looked so appetizing I think I actually started to drool… The Baking Company is a cute place that’s the perfect stop for some morning coffee and a delicious homemade pastry.  After breakfast my friend and I traveled a short distance down the 101 to the West Coast Game Safari Park, an awesome place for people of all ages to not only have close encounters with exotic animals that they would otherwise probably only see in pictures, but to learn about them as well.  We spent the afternoon petting and learning about animals such as the lynx and white tiger, and wishing that we had our own pet Wallaby.

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After we had our fill of cute furry animals and loud annoying peacocks, we headed back to Bandon for some smoothies from the Bandon Cofe Cafe which has quite an impressive menu including sandwiches, a variety of coffee drinks, and homemade pie (not to mention free WiFi!).  While it’s fun exploring, on a hot summer day there really isn’t anything better than relaxing on the beach and exploring the intertidal.  We weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the lovely weather, and saw both locals and visitors surfing, beach-combing, tide-pooling, and birdwatching. We ended our tough day of exploring with some delicious seafood at Tony’s Crab Shack!  This is an awesome place to sit outside, enjoy the beautiful weather and view, and enjoy some fresh seafood.

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This week will be a short one since the 4th of July in on Thursday.  While I will not be spending it in Bandon, my weekend will still be spent exploring Oregon’s coastline, but this time I’ll be in Seaside.  Stay tuned for more updates on my adventures and progress with Wild Rivers Coast Alliance!

Week 2: First Day in the Field!

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My work this week has been defined by many miscellaneous tasks I have done for various members of my mentor’s lab, almost none of which are related to my project, but I had a lot of fun with them. I have done analysis of videos taken in an estuary in Washington, measured tiny mud shrimp recruits (juveniles) after sorting through mud to find them, and measured, sexed, and examined adult mud shrimp to look for parasites and infection. I also “tested” the GoPro cameras we will be deploying in July to record the fish and crabs found in the invasive species of eelgrass.

A picture of the video I’m analyzing. You can see a full-sized Dungeness crab.

Mud samples on a tray that I sorted through looking for small mud shrimp recruits (juveniles)

Today was the first day I went out in the field to do sampling, on the mudflats near Hatfield Marine Science Center. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day today, so we didn’t have to wear heavy rain gear. We got very muddy, and I wish I had pictures but I don’t have a camera I wouldn’t mind getting dirty. We were looking for mud shrimp to measure and look for parasites. We used what is called a bucket core, which looks like a giant stainless steel bucket without a bottom and is about three feet tall. We pushed it all the way down into the mud, and shoveled the mud out into sieves, sorting through them and pulling out the shrimp as we found them. It was hard work, but the most fun I’ve had so far, and a great excuse to get outside and play in the mud!

Overall, it was a great week. I also bought a new camera, so hopefully I’ll have some higher quality pictures from now on. Next week I’m looking forward to building the mounts for our cameras and testing them in the field, and the Fourth of July, of course!

Week 1: Getting Oriented

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Hello!

My name is Sarah Heidmann, and I am one of the Summer Scholars this year for Oregon Sea Grant. I attend Oregon State University, and will be graduating in June 2014. I’m majoring in biology with the marine option, and minoring in statistics. I am originally from California, but am loving my experiences so far in Corvallis and Newport studying marine biology. This past spring term at OSU I lived in Newport taking an intensive marine biology course, and am excited to put all my new knowledge to the test.

Although I am working in Newport, I am living in Corvallis. Since OSU’s main campus is there, it was easier for me to live in the house I will have throughout the next year, in addition to being able to be with my friends who are here this summer. It’s about an hour driving distance, and I’ve been riding in a vanpool that allows me to sleep both ways, but I still have to get up pretty early.

Part of the beautiful bike ride I have every morning and afternoon in Corvallis on my way to and from the vanpool pickup location

This summer I am working in Newport with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS) studying fish and invertebrate use of coastal estuarine habitats. We are focusing on the habitat provided by a non-native species of seagrass, Zostera japonica, using GoPro cameras to record video in different areas and analyzing the numbers of fish and crabs that appear in the field of view. I’ll be in the field a lot this summer, getting very muddy.

The outside of the EPA building, where I work

So far I’ve been mostly practicing analysis of video from past years, trying to find some ways of improving the sampling technique. Although I’ve had some previous research experience, I still have so much to learn! I have been getting some training in Microsoft Access databases as well as statistics using R, which has a very steep learning curve when you have never programmed before. It seems like I’ll gain a some skill sets this summer that will be very useful farther down the road in my career.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my adventures! I am greatly looking forward to the rest of the summer.

Bandon or Bust!

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Hello readers!

My name is Catherine Courtier and I have recently graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a B.S. in Marine Biology. During my time as an undergraduate I was not only fortunate enough to work in the labs of some truly inspiring professors, but  got the chance to take part in field study classes that enabled me to get a taste of what exactly it was that I was spending my undergraduate career working towards. Now I am one of six lucky Summer Scholars chosen by Oregon Sea Grant to work with Wild Rivers Coast Alliance. My main focus has always been on marine organisms, (specifically invertebrates) however I have recently become interested in the issues that surround coastal conservation, something I hope to learn more about through WRCA.

I was born and raised in Southern California, so you could definitely classify me as a sun, sand, and sandals type of girl. So naturally when I found out that the town of Bandon Oregon (where I will be spending the next ten weeks of my life) typically reaches a summer high of 68° I was a bit concerned. However, when I arrived in this cozy coastal town my worries seemed to disappear as I caught glimpses of the landscape on my way down the 101.

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My first stop in Bandon was at the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, and home of the Wild Rivers Coast Alliance, where I had lunch with my mentors Marie Simonds and Jim Seeley while overlooking the Bandon Reserve Course. Aside from its spectacular beauty, this course is of particular interest because all its proceeds go to funding Wild Rivers Coast Alliance.

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Now that I am all settled in, I’ve had some time to begin exploring Oregon’s South Coast. Despite the questionable weekend weather and encroaching storm, I ventured out to the beach and was rewarded with mild temperatures and amazing tide pooling! In addition to the vibrant anemones and adorable sea stars, I caught a glimpse of some sunning sea lions and quite a bit of what I believe to be an orange sea sponge washed up on the beach.

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Sadly the storm eventually caught up with me, so my plans to explore the various hiking and biking trails Bandon has to offer will have to wait till next weekend! While I’m not by any means an expert cyclist, I hope to improve my riding over the course of this summer so I can help with the final stages of a new coastal scenic bike pathway.  Tomorrow marks week two of this amazing experience and I can’t wait to see what adventures are in store for me!

Coos Bay: My New Frontier

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Hello, all!

Thanks for joining me on my adventures in the Pacific Northwest this summer! Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Sam Thiede. I’m an undergraduate student at Purdue University majoring in Fisheries and Aquatic Science and minoring in Wildlife Science. I’m a senior and will be graduating May 2014 and plan on pursuing my masters and Ph.D. in either fisheries sciences or aquatic resource management. Currently, I am working at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) as a technical research assistant to Scott Groth through the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholars program, but you will all hear much more about that topic throughout the summer.

I’m a Midwesterner, specifically from Indiana. Before my arrival in Oregon I had never been farther west than St. Louis, Missouri and the trip here was quite a shock. My plane had a short layover in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have never seen desert before and I was in true awe of the scenery throughout my short hour there. Seeing the Great Salt Lake and all the desert salt flats in between the mountain tops looked like something out of a painting! As I flew out of the desert and into the mountains of Oregon, again I was in for a total shock. Mountain tops covered with snow, gigantic confiners leaning over open ocean, I was in love before I even stepped off the plane.

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Upon my arrival into Coos Bay, my mentor, Scott Groth, gave me a tour around the area. As we drove up Cape Arago highway we stopped off at an overlook of the bay to check for tsunami debris. Sure enough, all the way down at the bottom of the cliff face was a washed up Japanese plastic pallet. Much of the debris from the tsunami that struck Japan several years ago has been floating up on the coast of Oregon and biologists have been avidly collecting samples and trying to remove live specimens to avoid the spread of Japanese invasive species.

Within hours upon my arrival I was already scaling down the side of a cliff, sample bags and scraper in hand, to retrieve samples off of Japanese tsunami debris and at that moment I was assured I was in for an interesting and informative summer. We scraped off many kinds of unknown shellfish and algae (we are still processing the sample) and I was given a tour of the surrounding tide pools at the base of the cliff—full of shellfish, anemones, sculpins, etc.—to the soundtrack of sea lions (which I had never seen outside of a zoo!) barking on a nearby island. It was truly an exciting first day on the job.

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As the week went on I had begun to learn the ropes of the ODFW’s shellfish program. This week was all about collecting data on pink shrimp, cockles, and spot prawn. Local fishing boats and clammers offer samples to the ODFW in order for us to keep track of size structure and monitor age class trends over the years in order to ensure sustainable fisheries. Not only did I learn how to measure carapaces and sex shrimp but I also had the pleasure of meeting with the local fishermen and hearing their tales of their times out at sea, which is always very colorful! This coming week’s project will be littleneck clam surveys and will bring even more excitement as good stories always seem to come from field work.

I hope you will all continue to tune in as I delve more into the science of marine life here on the Oregon coast with the ODFW! I will post weekly about my experiences here in Coos Bay and am excited for the coming weeks as well as having you all following me along in my journey!

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Week One

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I am super excited to have the opportunity to be living in Newport Oregon this summer!
For the next nine weeks I will be working with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) to develop new outreach material regarding Pacific Rockfish conservation and the use of descending devices.  I will be using this blog to share my experiences while on the Oregon coast, both at work and recreating.   This is my first time living near an ocean, having grown up in the Chicago area and attending university in Michigan.  I intend to use the next nine weeks to enjoy the experience to the fullest.
My time with ODFW has gotten off to a great start!  Last Friday I was able to volunteer my time with ODFW’s rockfish PIT tagging crew.  As a volunteer it was my responsibility to catch as many Black Rockfish as possible with a rod and reel.  Having never fished the ocean before I was skeptical as to whether or not I would be able to catch any fish.  However, after just a short time of fishing I caught my first Black Rockfish and by the end of the seven hours I had caught nine fish in total. I feel the boat captain deserves a lot of the credit though, considering he’s the one that had to find where the fish may be lurking under water.
Yesterday, some of the other residents at Hatfield and I were treated to a special tour of the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  The guide took us behind the scenes to see where they culture jellyfish and brine shrimp as well as the pinniped training pools.  Lucky for us, as we arrived two of the harbor seals were just beginning their training session.  It was the cutest thing to see the seals bounce around the pool deck on their bellies.  My favorite exhibit at the aquarium was the Passages of the Deep, where visitors walked through a tunnel surrounded by rockfish, sharks and other deep sea life found off the coast of Oregon.
Mother Nature planned an additional surprise for my first week on the coast as well, a tide of -2.38 on Sunday morning.  So a fellow Hatfield resident and I went tide pooling at seal rock.  The rocks were covered with green anemones, starfish and mussels.  The mussels made the rocks seem alive, hissing and wheezing whenever they were disturbed.  Tucked between rocks where purple shore crabs and sea sponges and when we looked closely through the sea grass we even found a nudibranch (a fantastically colored sea slug)!
With such a successful first week I am really looking forward to the rest of the summer.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Hello, Oregon!

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Hello everybody, my name is James Kralj and I am so glad to be an Oregon Sea Grant summer scholar this year! I am a junior at the University of Wisconsin – Madison where I am majoring in microbiology. I am also an undergraduate researcher in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences where I help create and use computer models to study the ecology of Lake Michigan.  For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be an oceanographer and I cannot wait to start learning about marine science this summer!

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As part of my internship, I will be working with the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the Pacific Coastal Ecology Branch at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon studying soil oxidation rates in salt marshes along the Oregon coast.  I will be doing a lot of fieldwork this summer and I cannot wait to get started but before the fun begins, the EPA requires quite a bit of training.

This past week I have been working my way through the EPA’s health and safety training where I learned everything from how to properly hold a ladder to the correct usage of air filtration masks. Exciting, I know! But now that I have finished with that, I can start working in the field. Next week I will be going to two marshes with EPA researchers to set up our experiments.

In addition to getting started at the EPA, I have been having a great time so far in Newport. I am staying in the dorms at the Hatfield Marine Science Center and have met a ton of awesome people from all over the country. It has been great to meet so many people, each from such different backgrounds.

Also, everything here is so beautiful! We have been down to the beach many times already and each time I see the water I can’t get over how great it is to be living on the coast. Even if the weather isn’t perfect, it is still amazing to see the mountains and the waves through the fog and rain. Plus, I’d take a cool Pacific breeze over the hot and humid Wisconsin summers any day!

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I have already done a lot of great things in Newport. A group of students from Hatfield and I have gone to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and were given a behind the scenes tour which was really great to see. I have also had some pretty amazing seafood like clam chowder, fish and chips, and clam strips. I love to cook and can’t wait to try my hand at cooking some local seafood.

Although it has been just a week, I have already been having such a great time. I cannot wait to start my fieldwork next week and I am really excited to learn all about the coastal salt marshes of Oregon. And of course, I can’t wait to share all of my experiences with you!

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Summers End

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The rainless, hot days that have accompanied the last four weeks seemed to have lulled me into a false sense of perpetual summer. As I finished up last week I realized as my time at Sea Grant is coming to a close, the summer is likewise drawing nearer to the end. So, I took some time off from working on my project and presentation and decided to take my first trip back home to Portland this summer.  While I grew up there, Portland never seems to stop changing in interesting and delicious ways. I spent most of my weekend eating my way through various neighborhoods and districts, some of the highlights included a gourmet  grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich stand (the only way I know you can order bacon, cherry jam, jalapenos and peanut butter on the same sandwich), and bleu cheese and pear ice cream from Salt & Straw (seriously, amazing). It was also wonderful to get some much needed back-to-school shopping done, and of course spend some time with my friends and family.

Returning back to the office I am refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to tackle the next week of preparations for our symposium at the end of the week. Preparing my presentation so far has been particularly challenging, I feel like I have never had a presentation that requires as much balancing and specific language as this one does. I feel this is a product partially of the nature and purpose of the workshop, simply because a major topic of the workshop was to identify the most effective ways to communicate these issues to a range of professionals and members of the public, and since part of my presentation requires ‘setting the stage’ for the workshop, I feel it is important to carefully consider the way I am communicating and presenting these issues. This really puts the workshop in perspective with my long term goals of improving interdisciplinary communication, and provides me with valuable opportunity to practice my communication skills.