Category Archives: Summer Scholars

Interview Time!

Posted on by
3

This week was very productive in terms of my project. Like I said before, I’m making a guide to the shellfish industry in Oregon including information about growing and harvesting regulations, licenses and permits, standard shipping practices, etc. Since there hasn’t been much comprehensive research about the topic, it is up to me to interview as many people involved in the industry as possible to get the scoop. It feels a little bit like detective work, which makes it extra alluring. I was really itching to get out in the field with my tape recorder and note pad, when my adviser put me in touch with the owner of Oregon Oyster Farms here in Newport. I called him immediately and set up an appointment to meet with him at the facilities to do an interview and a tour. Needless to say, I was pumped.

When I arrived, I was greeted with enthusiasm and was taken to his office. The interview went great and even when we strayed from the questions written in my outline he provided expert opinions on the way the entire shellfish industry works (he not only grows oysters, but harvests, processes, and ships them internationally, as well as buying other types of seafood from different markets and selling them to his loyal customers). One topic that he was especially helpful with was figuring out what agency has jurisdiction over issuing the health certificates needed for a shipment of shellfish to be exported. In my research there was a little bit of confusion on whether Oregon Department of Agriculture, NOAA, or USDA was the main issuer of these licenses. As it turns out ODA used to issue these certificates for oysters until Chinese companies stopped accepting state issued licenses and instead worked out a deal with NOAA and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Currently the system under NOAA is not very uniform and the rest of my week was spent trying to get a hold of someone from the agency to discuss their inspection procedures (no luck yet!). After the interview I got to tour the whole farm and then I got to try some raw Pacific, Kumamoto, and Olympia oysters, which are far superior to those down in my neck of the woods. He even sent me home with a small tub of smoked oysters, so I must have done something right.

The rest of my week was spent transcribing my first interview and then making different phone calls to various agencies trying to get more clarification on licensing and inspection procedures. It has been pretty difficult to get in touch with some of the authorities on the subject, but I will continue to try. Also, my adviser gave me names of two Sea Grant Extension employees who will probably be able to give me a little more information on the industry and guide me on what I should be doing; however, I haven’t heard back from them yet either. But no matter! Perseverance is key in business and policy, so I will push forward.

Anyways, my weekend was pretty great. While there wasn’t much going on at the compound a few of us went out to an Irish pub on Friday and hiking at Drift Creek Falls on Saturday—my shins are still aching (from the hike not the pub!). Sunday was a pretty lazy day, but my roommate and I decided to give clamming another shot since she got her shellfish license. On the walk down there a bird pooped on my windbreaker, a sign that we would have excellent luck. While our luck wasn’t excellent, it wasn’t horrible either. I feel like I have a technique down and now I just need practice. We left with about 10 clams, mostly small ones, but I decided to cook them anyways. I looked up some chowder recipes, but decided to put my own twist on it. Everyone was a little skeptical, but I made believers out of all of them! Here’s the recipe:

Novice Clammer’s Louisiana Clam ChowderTM (adapted from some other, less delicious, chowder recipe)

¼ cup butter
½ cup diced onions →
½ cup diced green pepper → the trinity in Cajun cooking
½ cup diced celery →
3-4 stalks of kale (because its just sitting in your fridge and needs something to do)
¼ cup and 2 T. flour
3 medium red potatoes, or however many your neighbors will give you (thanks Lauren)
8oz. jar clam juice
14.5 oz can vegetable broth, because clam juice is deceptively expensive
However many clams you can find (which, let’s face it, isn’t very many right now)
¼ lb. cod fillet, gotta have some sort of filler for those darn clams!
¼ cup smoked oysters, if

you are lucky enough to be gifted some!
1-2 lemon wedges, more if you aren’t able to get your hands on a Fred Meyer lemon the size of a hand grenade
1 pint of half & half
Salt to taste

CHOWDAAAA

Start by melting the butter in a large saucepot. Sautee the trinity and kale in the butter until all the veggies are soft and the onions are transparent, add the flour and stir. Take off the heat and set aside. Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into small cubes and boil in a small pot for about 15 minutes or until tender, but not falling apart. Drain and set aside. After cleaning your few mostly small to medium clams (or getting someone else to do it for you!) chop them into small bite sized pieces along with the cod and oysers. Bring the clam juice, vegetable broth, all of your meats from the sea, and lemon to a boil in a medium pot, then lower the heat and let simmer for 15 minutes. Pour the broth gradually into the vegetable and flour mixture and stir, bringing it up to a slow boil. Lower the heat and add the cooked potatoes, then add the half & half while stirring. Keep on low heat, but don’t bring to a boil again. Serve to skeptical roommates/compound mates and watch as you blow their minds.

Learning! |wk.2|

Posted on by
2

Hello…

I’m amazed two weeks have gone by! It feels like I just got here because I have finally settled into a routine.

Working at ODFW…

I am gaining some awesome skills here. Mike, my mentor, purchased several Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 training videos/books and so far they have been super helpful. I hate to be spokesman here but if anyone is interested in video editing Premiere Pro is the way to go! It was pretty intimidating at first, at least to me, (the layout of the program is kind of busy) but all that was required was a little instruction to bridge the language barrier. My only concern is whether or not I can use all of the features to my, ODFW, and especially the public’s advantage!

I don’t think I explicitly said what I will be doing this summer. My goal is to create outreach videos using our ROV (remote-operated vehicle) footage. We have hundreds of clips from many different dives all along the Oregon Coast. Not many people know what’s under the ocean, so my job is to compile our footage and get it out there! Keeping the public informed is a big part of ODFW.

Adobe aside, I’ve been working a little bit with Google Maps. I have created a map of the 2006 – 2007 Yelloweye Rockfish Conservation Area and linked some ROV footage from YouTube to it. Right now it’s not public, but maybe in the future it will be! While it’s a small step, it’s a step in the right direction. Next comes Google Earth! I would like everyone to check out ODFW’s YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/IEODFW. If you go to the ‘Underwater Marine Life’ channel we already have some ROV footage uploaded from 2009 and 2010 – this is also where the videos I create will be added. Please browse some of the other videos while you’re at it – I recommend ‘Crabbing on the Oregon Coast’ (something I hope to do while I am here)! Bob Swingle, our I&E guy for web design and maintenance, is organizing/designing the Underwater Marine Life channel and adding our videos. So stay tuned!

People have been pretty helpful here at ODFW. Despite being busy they’re making time in their schedules to meet, or talk, with me. It’s always an interesting task of immersing yourself into a new job situation but it has been pretty easy here. So thanks ODFW!

My forecast for next week includes completing my Adobe Premiere Pro training, learning the whole Google Earth interface, and hopefully completing several small highlight videos as well!

Living in Oregon…

Newport is great. It’s centrally located on the coast so road trips both North and South are entirely feasible. This past weekend some of us scholars traveled North to Lincoln City for a scenic hike to Drift Creek Falls. Also happening in Lincoln City past weekend was the Kite Festival, so we got to check that out. The weather has been and continues to be great – not as much rain as I expected – however, it can be a tad chilly.

Lincoln City Kite Festival

Saving Oysters in Oregon – week 2

Posted on by
3

research by kayak. a break from science. playing with concrete

Sea kayaking. Is hard.

Steve, my advisor, wanted to visit the dredge islands of Coos Bay to collect oyster shells for several different projects, and he suggested kayaking to get them.  I immediately loved the idea.  Recreation and science together!  So we got buckets, trash bags, and ziplock bags to gather up hundreds of forgotten oyster shells and set off for these islands.

The dredge islands were formed the many times Coos Bay was dredged for the safe passage of ships.  Deep canals were created by digging up all the sediment and placing it on one side of the bay, creating heaps of stuff that used to be on the bay floor.  After years and years, grasses, shrubs, and trees colonized the newly formed islands and created what you see on the left.  Much of it is still inundated with water except during low tides as you can see on the right.  What’s most interesting about these dredge islands, is that they are comprised of thousands of old oyster shells that were picked up from the bottom of the bay along with all the sediment during the dredgings.  Apparently, oysters used to be abundant in the subtidal waters of Coos Bay, and you can still see their remnants by the hundreds in some areas, just like in the middle picture.

We collected oyster shells for a number of different projects.  1) Since these oysters were most likely from subtidal waters (always submerged), we wanted to compare their sizes with the intertidal oysters (exposed during low tides) that are common today.  We expect the subtidal oysters to be larger because Olympia oysters seem to fare better if they are submerged for longer periods of time.  A known-sized square was sectioned off, and all the whole and intact shells within that area were collected and will be used for the comparison.  2) We also collected the biggest shells we could find, and about 10 gallons of crushed shells to use in our Oly Roc project, which I will describe later.
I’ve found that field research is a great deal of fun, but a lot of hard work.  I was completely exhausted by the end of this collection trip, which is probably explained by the fact that my kayaking partner and I could not seem to paddle in the direction we wanted for about an hour, and maybe because we got stuck up to our knees in soft mud several times, but that seems to be the life of a field researcher.  You go up against the elements, explore to find new and exciting things.. and learn where you shouldn’t go next time.
I finally took a break from science and got the chance to sit in on a national reserve’s board meeting.  The administration, the scientists, public relations, education outreach, and the head of the Department of State Lands all came together to talk about all the issues that pertain to an estuary reserve.  I did not realize how complicated and complex these could be.  Governmental departments, non-profits, community groups, academia, are all involved, and they all want to help but also need to be appeased.  To be honest, I got pretty lost after only maybe 10 minutes in this meeting.  I also did not realize how much the operations of such a group rely on money.  They need to be funded to employ staff, maintain the grounds, implement projects, and do scientific research.  It seemed like a very stressful topic.  Even though they are granted money by the state’s budget, it is not much, and they have to apply for more funding through grants, and they lose money left and right from budget cuts.  It seemed like they had a lot on their plates, what with the responsibility to meet the demands of many different groups but being restricted by money, manpower, and their own jurisdiction.  I have a lot of respect for them.
Moving on, the last project of the weeks was the Oly Rocs!  Olympia oyster restoration is happening all over the Northwestern coast, but what makes Coos Bay special is that there is constantly a high level of larval recruitment.  That means that the bay gets thousands and thousands of little oyster babies looking for a suitable place to call home.  The problem is, much of the suitable places have been destroyed by man and nature, and the tiny oysters have nowhere stable and safe enough to be able to survive.
So we’re going to try to create some for them!  We need lots and lots of shells because oyster babies love growing on them, and something heavy and durable enough to not just disperse into the open sea because of the major tide action.
Answer: Lots of shell and concrete.
So I made my first Oly Roc – a trial run, I would say.  It needs a lot of work and tweaking in terms of the process of making it.  I am just learning about mixing, placing, and curing concrete, and then I have to think about toxicity for the oysters and the possibility of the concrete weakening in saltwater.  If you know anything about those two, let me know!
What’s in store for next week:  probably working on perfecting the Oly Roc, gathering information for short blurbs to educate the public on native oysters and restoring them, and learning about data loggers that will help us track environmental changes in the bay!

Sea_Gil’s Blog Pt.2

Posted on by
2

Hi all! It’s Margaretmary again. During my second week working for the EPA, I had the chance to attend some meetings and that made me feel pretty professional, as I have never before had a job that required meetings. These meetings were very important because they were an opportunity for me to discuss which bivalve shell characteristics were the ones we should try to capture for the database in terms of ocean acidification.  But this meant I had to do my homework so to speak. I had to read over numerous scientific articles and large books in order to familiarize myself with bivalve shell terminology. Some words and phrases I had never even heard of before such as periostracum and complex crossed lamellar layer. Thanks to my reading I definitely feel more confident in my knowledge of shell structure. Aside from reading, I began filling out information in the data sheet that my mentors and I set up. I am doing this for each family of bivalve found in the Pacific Northwest and the information includes things like what type of calcium carbonate shell a family has.

One of the major challenges of this project is gathering all the information needed for the data sheet. As of right now I am mainly using two sources to get most of the data, but there are still many characteristics that are not mentioned in either one that are needed for the database. I will probably have to scour the internet and library for additional sources so that I can fill out as much of the data as possible.

Another challenge I encountered this past week was the epic saga of book scanning. One of my coworkers got a book from the library for me to use and when my mentor saw it he decided it would be helpful to have an electronic copy of it. The electronic copy would make things much easier on me because I can just search the document for keywords. Now I had never scanned a book before so I was taught how to by a person on the EPA staff. It seemed pretty easy and I was under the impression that I would scan the pages as jpegs and then be able to convert those images into a pdf file. I was very wrong and found this out a little late. After scanning about seventy pages I was told that I had to save the scans as pdfs and that I would have to go back and rescan all the pages I had already done. So finishing that scanning process will be one of the things I will be doing this week. I imagine I will also be filling out more of the data sheet as well.

But enough of that scanning debacle. I really enjoyed my weekend. My Sea Grant friends and I went to Drift Creek Falls on Saturday. After hiking for about a mile and a half, we crossed a (kind of scary) suspension bridge and climbed some rocks to get very close to a waterfall! This was the first waterfall I have ever seen and it was totally awesome. To finish out the weekend, my roommate and I went clamming (I purchased by clamming license, so I’m trying to get some good use out of it). We dug up around 10 clams in total and she suggested we try to make a chowder. I have to give mad props to Betty for her great Novice Clammer Louisiana Clam Chowder™. Yum yum!

Drift Creek Waterfall!

Herring Eggs and Other Oddities.

Posted on by
2

ODFW Adventures: Part II

Hello again! After having made it through my second week at ODFW in this unfamiliar job I have been given, I am starting to gain my bearings and understand a little bit better what I am expected to accomplish before I pack up my bags and return to studying in the dreary depths of the Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette University. Continued from last week, I counted more herring egg samples at what has become my second desk inside the chem. Lab. With the CV calculations I explained at the end of last week’s blog continuing to be high for most samples, I counted out all 30 subsamples in frustration due to the knowledge that I could theoretically have counted out three whole samples in that time frame. Yet on Friday I allowed myself to count the rest of the bagged samples I have left inside the freezer, and realized that after having counted 11 samples I only have 10 left to go!

As for my place on the Nearshore Strategy team, I am still finding my niche. Our weekly meeting on Wednesday still swirled my brain to muck with all of the unfamiliar details of our work being avidly discussed by my other team members. I was disappointed after the 2 hour meeting that I still felt lost in the project, and still having several questions about the draft outline for our document on climate change, I followed Aly into her office with my questions. Being extremely helpful as she always is, Aly discussed my questions with me and called in Delia, the creator of the outline, to expand the discussion. Although this impromptu second meeting set my stomach grumbling as lunch was delayed an hour and a half, I walked out of the office with access to new reading materials that would guide me through the discussions at our normal meetings and the job of finding sources for our upcoming climate change document research, along with a new sense of purpose.

Alongside these two main “events” of my week, I spent time doing small projects and assignments to keep myself occupied. Using a list of scientific names, I attempted to search for the common names of these species (trust me, this was a lot harder than it sounds!) and proudly found all but 14 of them, I read more, more, and MORE documents (I suspect this will be a popular theme during the rest of my internship), helped clean the chem. Lab with another co-worker (which was judged to not have been cleaned for the last 30 years or so—definitely a good use of my time!), and began going over some basic GIS training that was found on the ODFW website. Although the powerpoint slides I went through taught me a lot of basic terms of GIS and its main purposes and abilities in map-making, I still find myself lost with this incredible software.

Based on this week’s list of work and achievements, I will continue diligently counting samples next week in the lab, read through the sources I have already found for the climate change document to learn about ocean issues related to climate change and sort the documents into categories for the rest of my team’s convenience, and hopefully go through several more forms of GIS training to help me understand this immense resource for future use. Wish me luck!

2 weeks down, already?

Posted on by
5

I know this is a bit cliche to say, but my goodness, time is moving by fast! I have already completed the 2nd week of my 10 week internship and I feel like I just started.

This week has been filled with lots of emails, phone calls, stacks of policy documents, and meetings. I realized mid-week that I am in love with the field I am working towards right now. Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP) is cutting-edge for both the science and policy realms. It is also a field that calls for interdisciplinary work and requires individuals to be literate in both fields. Marine science and policy are my two passions that I have not been able to decide between; CMSP unites both. I am already starting to develop graduate school ideas for how I could contribute to this field with my future PhD.

The most interesting part of this week was sitting in on a webcast for a national policy meeting for CMSP. On Tuesday I got up at the crack ‘o’ dawn to sit in on the meeting at 6 am. To provide some very brief background, in July of last year, Obama created 9 new ocean policy priorities for the United States. Developing CMSP for coastal regions and the territorial seas of the United States was one of them. CMSP is a process where map layers of the ocean (topography, biology, oceanography) are combined with the human needs for marine resources. Spatial and decision-making computer programs map these together to identify areas of high priority (EX: finding areas of high conflicting interests, or seeking areas that are biologically most vulnerable). The national meeting that I watched online was designed to receive input from stakeholders (people who have a vested interest in the ocean) on the CMSP process laid out by the National Ocean Council. It was also a venue to help inform stakeholders about the CMSP process and the vision behind making it a national priority. While listening to agency heads was a bit boring in the beginning, I found the workshop to be very informative and engaging to listen in on.

If you are curious for more detail into what CMSP is about, I will be writing a more lengthy blog description on my personal blog AnnaRose and the Sea later today. Also if you are interested in some links to national policy visit the White House’s National Ocean Council website for more information.

 

Saving Oysters in Oregon – week 1

Posted on by
1

Hello there!

A quick introduction:  My name is Joanne Choi and I am recent graduate from Yale University where I studied Environmental Studies with an emphasis on marine systems.  My main research interest was in jellyfish ecology, specifically relationships with endosymbiotic bacteria and polyp settlement.  I have also done research in the Turks & Caicos Islands with the School for Field Studies on the effectiveness of marine protected areas, and in St. Thomas, USVI on rates of soil run-off and sedimentation in the Caribbean.  I am here in the Oregon Sea Grant program to gain more experience before I apply to graduate school for a career in marine environmental work at the intersection of science, policy, and outreach!  Outside of academics, I am a socal native, a dancer, an amateur-but-almost-there! scuba diver, a travel addict, a recreational photographer, and.. a dork.. as evidenced by the fact that it took me at least 30 minutes to find a nice, serious picture of me appropriate for this website.

 

Now, on to more important things… What exactly am I doing during my internship with Oregon Sea Grant?

OYSTER RESTORATION!!

I am working to restore the Native Olympia Oysters, Ostrea lurida, to Coos Bay and the South Slough in Oregon.  They used to flourish in the estuaries and coastal waters off the west coast hundreds of years ago before the Native Americans harvested them, tsunamis and earthquakes buried them under sediment, Europeans brought over non-native Pacific oysters for large-scale production, and the usual habitat modification, sedimentation, overfishing, and so on from human use of coastal lands.

Oysters provide many indispensable ecosystem services, however, including:

  • improving water quality through filtration
  • ocean bottom stabilization
  • providing a complex habitat for biodiverse ecosystems

and thus, it would be extremely advantageous for us to help these at-risk species recover to sustainable levels.

My Advisor…

is Steve Rumrill, a scientist at South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, an assistant professor at University of Oregon, graduate faculty at Oregon State University, and on the board for (it seems like) countless councils and advisory committees.  Even if I have only known him for a few days, I can say that he is an amazing mentor who is extremely willing to share his knowledge and expertise, offer opportunities for me to get as much hands-on training and experience as I can, and give advice on how to maneuver in the marine world career-wise.

What I’ve done so far..

  1. I read tons and TONS of academic papers, packets on workshop proceedings, a powerpoint, etc on oyster ecology, oyster restoration efforts around the world, and the natural history of Olympia oysters in Coos Bay.  I didn’t know much about oysters to begin with, so I had to be caught up.
  2. Made friends with the summer session and graduate students here at OIMB.  At first, I was worried that I was the only OSG scholar in Charleston, OR, which is at least 2 hours away from the rest of the group.  But the people here are extremely friendly and fun, and there are tons of cool things to do here.  I’ve already gone to a beach bonfire, tidepooling, trekked through a tunnel to find an isolated beach, and into Coos Bay a few times (had to go to Goodwill because, Daang! it’s COLDER than I thought it would be!)
  3. Collected oyster shell bags and scrubbed them.  Bags of Pacific oyster shells (because there are a lot of them) are deployed in various locations in Coos Bay as recruitment sites for Olympia oyster larvae.  After a year or two, they are taken out of the water and cleaned to remove possible competitors, predators, sand and mud that may decrease flow-through, so that the juvenile Oysters have a better chance at survival.  They are also scrubbed so that invasive species are not spread when we re-locate bags.
  4. Had meetings with other graduate students, postdocs, professors, and policy makers who are all involved in the oyster restoration process.

What I will do next..

  1. Make Oly ROCS (Olympia – Restore Oysters with Cement Substrata).  We are going to construct, test, deploy, and evaluate a new technique to embed living Oly (Olympia) oysters into substrate that will hopefully attract more oysters to attach and settle for a more long-term arrangement than the oyster shell bags.
  2. There are many more possible projects including installing & operating a water quality datalogger, and some personal projects of mine such as attempting to mountain bike to get to some cool sites around here, but I will explain more about those as they come up!

 

APOLOGIES for making this SOO long!  I wasn’t expecting to be such a talkative blogger, but SO much has happened in the past week!  I’ll try to take more pictures so you can see all my cool projects in-action, but as you’ll soon see, it can become quite a dirty job working in the field with mud.. not to mention a little dangerous for a digital camera when you’re working with water.

Until next time!!

‘Ore-eh-gun’ |wk.1|

Posted on by
3

Hello, hello, hello!

It has been one week since I first arrived in Corvallis, Oregon to begin my internship. A lot has happened! I’ve met lots of great people and seen lots of cool places – but first, a short intro. I hail from Michigan which is also where I go to school (Michigan Technological University). I have one year to go and then I’ll have my BS in Biology with a concentration in fish bio, and a minor in ecology. I’ll be working with Mike Donnellan at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) under the Marine Resources Program (MRP).

I decided to drive to Oregon which was about 39 hours away, taking three days and two nights, and crossing 10 states. While it was a bit intense, it was a great experience, and I got lots of great pics. Plus, how often can you say you drove across the country? :)

Since my arrival, and mainly last weekend, I’ve managed to see the banana slugs in the Redwood National Forest in California, numerous hundred+ foot waterfalls along the Colombian River Gorge, and the 11,249 foot Mt. Hood. I hope to see more while I’m here learning and working!

Coast Redwoods

While I wasn’t exploring I was working. Part of what I have been doing this past week has been familiarizing myself with ODFW and the whole West coast in general. There are a lot of species I’m not familiar with and it has been real interesting to learn about them – I even had the opportunity to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which I highly recommend.

The other part consisted of me building a framework for how I will be tackling my project. There are a lot of things I need to learn, like Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 or building a map interface on GoogleMaps/Earth. What we want to try to do is pinpoint locations on a map where the general public can go, click on the point, and see underwater ROV footage of that exact spot. Surprisingly, not many people really know what the ocean floor looks like! I am getting a lot of ideas from people so I’m excited to see where this project will take me and how much I can accomplish!

 

 

 

Oysters, Crabs, and Clams!

Posted on by
5

 

My name is Betty Mujica and I am working as a Sea Grant Summer Scholar in Newport, OR until August! I’m excited to share my adventures, both at work and play.  I took a road trip with one of the other scholars all the way from Louisiana to arrive in the fine city of Newport, which took about 6 days.  We stopped in Arlington and Amarillo, TX; Buena Vista, CO; Salt Lake City, UT; and Boise, ID (where we got to fly in a little private plane!).  Finally we arrived in Corvallis, then Newport, to get down to business.

My project this summer focuses on the transportation of live seafood—Dungeness crab and oysters—from the Oregon coast to a growing Chinese market.  Working under the mentorship of two advisers, I will conduct interviews with seafood producers along the coast of the Pacific NW to figure out what shipping and handling practices are most common and most effective.  Furthermore, I will be conducting an economic analysis of these transportation systems to analyze what methods are the most beneficial.  Hopefully by the end of the summer, we will have a comprehensive guide to harvesting and transporting seafood for any newcomers into the seafood market.

Tuesday of last week marked the first official workday for all the Sea Grant Scholars.  I met with one of my advisers who gave me some literature to read up on about seafood transportation and a background of the industry in the NW.  Coming from Louisiana, I’m somewhat familiar with seafood; however, the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico are pretty different in terms of what seafood they yield, so reading up on background information is pretty important.  While most of my week was spent reading and researching, I was able to do a few interactive things to enhance my understanding of the industry.  I went down to Newport’s historic bay front area and checked out the local seafood shops and restaurants, enjoying a delicious order of fish and chips (made with local lingcod).  Another evening, I went to Local Ocean, a sustainable seafood restaurant.  I decided since I was studying how to harvest and ship Dungeness crab, I should probably try eating one.  I ordered a 2 pounder and getting the meat out was exhausting, but worth it.

In my free time, I started researching how to dig clams.  This is something completely foreign to me, but apparently quite common to those who grew up around these parts.  I went out one day with two other Scholars and dug around to find some clams—no one told us it wasn’t that simple.  The next day I did some in depth research, watching YouTube videos and learning all the regulations.  I also bought a shellfish permit, which allows me to harvest between 12-20 clams per day, depending on the type of clam.  Then my friends and I went out again, this time with tube-shaped sand removing contraptions and started to dig.  This time we had major success, finding several different types including a pretty big gaper clam.  Unfortunately, we didn’t look into how to store clams correctly and by the next day they were dead.  But no worries, I’ll continue to research and figure out how to clam efficiently and eventually I will be a clamming master!

This week should be filled with much more reading and research, but hopefully I’ll start visiting oyster farms and some commercial crabbers to get a first-hand look at how the industry works.  My one hope for this week is that we have less rain and more sun– what can I say, I’m a dreamer!

Bondia from Corvallis

Posted on by
1

Bondia tur hende! (Good morning to all in Papiamientu)

My name is AnnaRose Adams and I will be the returning Sea Grant veteran posting on this summer’s Scholars blog. Last summer, I was a Sea Grant Scholar doing marine policy work with the Governor’s Task Force on Nearshore Research. This summer, I have decided to return to Sea Grant again to do more work related to marine policy (more on that in a bit).

A little about me:

  • Just graduated from Oregon State with an Honors BS in BioResource Research, focusing in marine ecology and policy
  • During fall of 2010, I traveled to the Caribbean island of Bonaire (hence the reference to Papiamientu above) to attend a field school for marine ecology and complete my undergraduate thesis.
  • My passion is integrating marine science and policy. I love serving as a “translator” between both fields in order to make scientific discoveries become a political reality.
  • In the winter, I will be traveling to Fiji to do socioeconomic research on alternative incomes for local fisherman that are impacted by Marine Protected Areas.

So what will I be up to this summer?

My main role this summer will be doing a lot of event planning. I will be helping to head up the creation of a workshop on Coastal Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP). This workshop is one of the current goals of Oregon State’s Marine Council. The purpose of the event will be to bring together key individuals that have expertise in CMSP to help identify goals and priorities for how Oregon can meet the Obama administration’s new goals for creating spatial maps of US territorial waters. Much of my work will involve research into current work being done in the field, identifying gaps, making lots of phone calls, going to meetings, and organizing the structure for the CSMP workshop.

A final FYI…

I keep a regular blog AnnaRose and the Sea that will provide greater insight and detail into my thoughts about my internship experience. My blogging with most likely continue as I go to Fiji (so long as I have internet access). When I post on here, I will be updating short summaries. I encourage you to check out my personal blog if you want to follow my work. It is also located on the Blogroll links of this page on the left side of your screen.

Over and out,

AnnaRose Adams