Pressure.

It’s what pushes us to perform our best, it’s sometimes hard to handle….and  it’s also what created Crater Lake.

This week was a pretty routine work week- I spent the first half megacoring with the SEACOR team and the latter half in the office doing background research for our oyster survey, counting shrimp, and conducting surveys of local recreational crabbers/clammers. Pretty low pressure as far as work is concerned.

However, this week we received information on our final symposium taking place the 9th week of the program, for which we have to prepare a 5 minute talk and poster to present to the Sea Grant audience. The due dates for when these final products have to be submitted are fast approaching. Intro pressure. I have done enough public speaking to feel pretty comfortable giving these sorts of presentations. But in such a short time frame, trying to relay across enough information to draw an audience seems a difficult task. I’ve also never created a professional poster before, and trying to get it done in the midst of what will almost surely be my most time-consuming work week to date (with the native oyster survey happening Monday- Friday with just Joe and myself hitting 60+ site by foot, boat, etc), just does not sound appealing. That being said, I will change out of my grumpy pants and rise to the occasion to put together something I will be able to show off with some dignity at the final symposium.

Beyond the pressure of the program, I’m feeling external pressure as well. With only a few weeks left in my internship, I’ll be back home before I know it. The pressure of finding a job to come back to is intensifying. I have always been a person with forethought, planning my next move to get me to my next goal. I remember the relief I felt after being accepted into this program, because it meant I had a next step after graduating college. But I’m at a dead end. This time (as of now) I don’t have a next step waiting for me when I get done. And I don’t like that, not one bit. My long-term plan is to go back to school in Fall ’18 for my master’s, but find a full time position in the mean time to save money for school and make a dent in my existing loans. But finding a full time position in anything even remotely close to my field is proving difficult. Especially in my home state of NY. I’ve been away from home for 4 years and the thought of being back in Rochester for awhile after graduating was comforting. But if I can’t find work I fear I’ll feel paralyzed. Like I’m not living up to the expectations I had for my life beyond graduation.

I have been putting out applications, editing my LinkedIn profile, contacting old mentors- everything they tell you to do when looking for a job. So far, I’ve only gotten rejections or no response at all. Dealing with the rejection has been a bit of a struggle for me, mainly just because it’s often blamed on my lack of work experience. Well how am I supposed to get the experience if no one will hire me?! (I realize this is an issue 99% of recent grads have all been through/ relate to, but this is my blog so let me have my pity party moment, thanks). I kind of hoped having a degree would put an end to my interning days/ working for minimum wage, but I don’t think I’ll be in a big girl job making the “big” bucks anytime soon. I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing and hope something turns up (if you’re reading this and you have a job opening- hire me? :) or if you have info on any positions please send it my way!).

Now on to hydrothermal pressure. Ah yes, the fascinating natural disaster that gave rise to beautiful Crater Lake. 7,700 years ago the catastrophic eruption of Mount Mazama led the mountaintop to collapse in on itself and form a massive bowl-like depression called a caldera. The caldera, almost 4000 ft deep, then filled with water from rainfall and snow events, to form a lake 1943 ft deep, the deepest in the United States.

The geologic history of the lake is fascinating but its natural beauty is what’ll take your breath away. It was my first time being in a national park, and even with such a high volume of visitors the park was pristine, with the natural features so well preserved, and human presence undetected in a lot of areas. I was in awe all day, impressed by the natural structures and national park service alike. We took a beautiful hike- that was classified as strenuous but totally doable, and not super crowded- up Garfield Peak, which took us through wildflowers, hordes of butterflies, a bit of snow, and followed the edge of the caldera almost the whole way.

Later on we took another hike, this time down to the water at the only access point to the lake. It was a sunny, warm day and I jumped right in without hesitation. After a few sharp breaths and the initial shock of the cold I actually adjusted to the temperature pretty quickly. Julia joined me and we both took our time swimming (a deviation from most people who get in, can’t handle the cold and get the hell out) and taking in the views above and below us. I’m not a religious person, but being in that gorgeous blue water was a spiritual experience. So was sitting in a rocking chair in the back of the luxurious lodge with a drink in hand, looking out over the park while the sun sank lower in the sky. It was a perfect day.

Till next time,

Katie

July has passed in a blur, and it’s somehow already August, with only four weeks left in Oregon. I’ve had–during the Sea Grant camping trip to the Tamolitch blue pool, and Crater Lake National Park—which I’ll hopefully get to in another blog post. This week, though, I wanted to give an update on the green crab work numbers in Coos Bay since they were first found in 1998. Last year, a total of around 200 crabs were caught throughout all of Coos Bay, including in South Slough. So far this year, more than 1,500 crabs have been caught in the estuary.

Before getting into more detail, I want to explain a technicality that makes understanding the data easier. We use something called Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) for our measurement of crab abundance as a way to standardize crab numbers. CPUE is calculated by dividing the total number of crabs caught by the number of traps set. In this way, we can control for the number of crabs by the trapping effort. If we used just abundance numbers (like the 200 crabs caught in 2016 and 1,500 in 2017) to compare between sites or between years, our values might be impacted by the fact that we set a different number of traps at each site or year. Using CPUE allows us to more directly compare crab abundance.

So, back to the data. Luckily for the South Slough, the drastic increase in green crab abundance seen in Coos Bay has been almost entirely restricted to the upper part of the Coos Bay and not in the South Slough specifically. While a couple sites in South Slough have seen a CPUE increase of about 0.5—1 crabs/trap, a couple other sites in the South Slough have actually decreased by about the same amount compared to last year. In the other side of Coos Bay, though, the CPUE has increased by 15 crabs/trap/day—more than a 600% increase!

The map below shows the change in CPUE across all sites in the different parts of the Coos Estuary. The triangles show where green crabs were present in 2016. You can see from the colored circles that the Upper Bay has seen a much higher increase in CPUE than the South Slough.

Because of the massive increase in green crabs this year, we are trying to get the word out to the community. I have encountered people a few times while out doing fieldwork that ask questions about what we’re doing, which provides a great opportunity to share about green crabs and let them know about the issue. We’ve printed flyers that we can hand out to the community with information on how to identify green crabs, why they are a problem, and what to do if they are found. I am going to continue outreach about green crabs by updating the information flyer and distributing them around.

The human community members we’ve encountered have been great to talk to, but the dog community members have been even better. One of our field sites has two dogs that have joined us every time we’ve been there. They live in a house somewhere behind our field site, but I’m not exactly sure where, because every time we are there they just come running down the hill through a patch of forest behind the beach and join us for crab trap setting.

A good dog:

Also a good dog:

They are really helpful workers and will be great scientists someday 12/10

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!

A beautiful day on the Wilson River.

The Tillamook area is quite beautiful. There are moments during a busy day of sampling when I suddenly forget what I am doing and feel the blue sky, beautiful water, birds and the breeze. This is a job that actual people have, and that I could have some day too. It’s not a bad life.

I am currently incubating a batch of water samples taken earlier this week in lower Tillamook Bay. This incubation is special because I decanted the samples in the BOD bottles within hours of collection, rather than keeping the samples in a cooler over night before filling the BOD bottles. The respiration rates from the two previous incubations show significant variation by geographic location, and it will be interesting to see how the 4 most recent samples I took look in comparison with the others, and if the rates are still consistent with this batch and storage hasn’t influenced the rates from the previous incubations. My mentor Cheryl has been mapping them in ArcGIS and it is neat to see the data depicted visually on the map of the Bay. It affords a completely different sense of the data than a bar graph or scatter plot.

On our last trip to Tillamook, we employed a hover craft to get around. It sounds fun, and it is, sort of. Mostly, it’s a nail-biting, loud and wet ride. The most redeeming aspect of the hover craft is that it makes who ever is in it look really cool. I had the pleasure of spotting a van on the highway come to a complete stop to stare at us as we were heading back to the boat-launch. Of course, minutes later, we almost nose-dived and crashed when the tail wind started giving us a little too much help, and I had to scramble on top of the ice chest to put as much weight on the rear of the craft and get sprayed with water. That did not look cool. Good thing the van wasn’t watching.

My next trip to Tillamook will involve assisting with the installation of rigging to secure an instrument package beneath a pier. The planning and design that has gone into this is significant, as are the challenges. There are cables, pulleys, huge bags of stones, and power tools involved. The trick will be in not getting smashed by the pier or boat, as the work must take place from a boat beneath said pier. I will also be collecting a time series of water samples to test for variation in respiration rates as the water changes with the tides.

I leave you with a couple pictures of the latest rig we have employed on water sampling trips for maximum efficiency.
Cheers!

Filtering water with the peristaltic pump.

Pumps make sampling fun!

Well I am extremely late on posting this but here’s a bit about my past two weekends, both which turned out to be a couple of the summer’s best so far. My experience with two professional photographers happened on that first weekend, July 13-16, while the second weekend (July 20-23) was highlighted by the Mid-Summer Camping trip.

Friday morning (7/14) started early at 4:45am. Catie and I drove down to Secret Beach in Brookings and met up with Dave Lacey of South Coast Tours LLC where we were joined by Holly and Scott, two experienced paddleboarders and soon to get some experience in modeling, and later Justin and Erik. Justin and Erik arrived later than anticipated because the lighting wasn’t as great as they had hoped (it was extremely foggy). They rolled up fashionably late in their fancy SUV, drinking their fancy Dutch Bros Coffee. They were obviously hot shot professionals. Well, it turns out these hot shot professionals were some of the nicest, coolest people you could find in Oregon. Erik was a big, bearded, refreshingly sarcastic whale-lover who’s casualness about his life made for great conversation and even greater stories. Justin was a very tall, very young-looking father who just fit the role of the quintessential photographer. I could tell his role as a father was imbedded in his identity when he told me that I made him nervous when I got too close to the cliff edge. Both men were funny, kind, and patient, and they both answered the disgustingly numerous questions I had for them about photography. They definitely made the weekend special, that’s for sure. Anyways, after a respectfully reserved introduction not typical of myself, we stood around discussing possible options due to the poor lighting. The conversation was casual and light-hearted, and I remember laughing a fair amount despite the lack of sleep and caffeine. We ended up deciding that paddle-boarding was still an option so we made the trek down to Secret Beach, which I should mention is soooo much easier going down than up. At the beach, Holly, Justin, Dave, and Justin hopped on the paddleboards while Catie and myself stayed around shooting on the shore with Erik. I can’t remember much about those conversations or what we did exactly but I remember feeling content – it was the earliest morning I’d had since coming to Oregon and I was spending it on this peacefully eerie foggy beach with a friend and a stranger, just taking photos. Only thing that could’ve made it better would have been a cup of coffee in my hand, but hey I was chill without it.

Morning Paddle-boarding at Secret Beach

After the beach shoot, we all were starving so we headed to a place to get brunch. Lemme tell you, brunch was a BLESSING. It is rare for me to finish everything off my plate but I did not leave a single thing on my plate (okay I left a piece of toast but that doesn’t really count). It was just nice to have a cup of coffee, a hot plate, and a good amount of laughs with all these chill new friends. Even though I was slowed down with all this food in me, the day did not slow down. Immediately, we drove inland to the Chetco River in hopes of clearer skies (we were successful!). We got to a place called Elephant Rock right on the river and there we cliff jumped into the perfectly temped water while Erik and Justin constantly snapped photos. After that we finally got a bit of a break while Erik and Justin headed back to their hotel to download their photos so Catie and I headed to the beach. While I took a nap underneath the still grey sky Catie walked around taking photos of birds. Guys, I was pooped. Like seriously so damn tired. I was the driver that day and after an early start, late coffee, a fat meal, and cliff jumping I was ready to rest eternally in Nap Heaven. And let me tell you, that was one of the best naps I’ve had in a loooong minute. Not only was I dreaming and hallucinating like crazy but when I woke up an hour later the sky was completely sunny! It was a night and day difference from when my eyes closed and when they opened, and it was a sight for sure. The sun was blazing down, people were walking up and down the beach, and the birds were flying about, enjoying themselves as they dipped in and out of the water. Nothing else to say except that it was beautifully perfect.

Elephant Rock on the Chetco River

After checking out the dead Harbor Seal, Catie and I met up with the gang and we walked along the pier, checking out a restaurant or two, while Erik and Justin’s shutters sound all the while. During that time, we went to a restaurant/bar called Fat Irish where the beer is poured from the bottom of the glass. I couldn’t explain really how it’s done but it’s unique because this pouring method uses more of the beer within the keg than a standard pour method to a substantially significant percentage. Well, with that information we all had to have a beer (strictly for photography purposes of course). I got this beer called the Shark Bite and it was cider with Guinness. Dankness confirmed. After that Erik and Justin needed to break for dinner so we separated again. Dave, Catie, and I went back to Fat Irish and ate together. It was real nice to connect with these two individuals over cold beer and hot Rueben’s. I guess now’s as good a time as any to give a shoutout to Dave for being so hospitable and friendly and fun to Catie and I. Seriously without him this weekend would not have been as cheap, as enjoyable, let alone possible. So, Catie and I dipped out after dinner and we had about a half hour or so to kill before we had to meet up with Erik and Justin again so what do we do? Visit California, of course! Yup, we mobbed down that 101 and gave a quick “What’s good!” to the best place in the world (I’m sorry y’all but it’s true and we all know it). It was a weird mix of satisfaction and disappointment at knowing that I was the closest to home, family, and friends than I’d been in four weeks and that I wouldn’t be that close again for another six weeks.

*Welcome Home

Well Catie and I hoped back in the whip and we met up with Erik and Justin at Samuel Boardman State Park. On that cliff we all enjoyed the setting of the sun whilst snapping photos. But once the sun started making it’s way over the horizon everyone stopped taking photos. We all just stood there and stared silently. That’s the thing about sunsets, they’re religious. You’ve gotta be respectful of it. Well, the “work” day was all but done now that the light was gone so we said bye to Justin and Erik and made our way back up to Port Orford to start the process over again the next day….    

Well, I’ve rambled on plenty about the sweet stuff I experienced in just one day and I’m extremely blessed to say there have been many like that in the past two weekends so instead of writing novels for all these other dope days and decimating the number of followers of this blog I’m just going to write three bullet point highlights for each day. Hope this little teaser will be enough to provide some context as to what the overall vibe and take away was for the day.  

Photographers Justin, Erik, and myself

Thursday 7/13 (day before this Friday)

• Did a morning run on the Battle Rock beach. Even took a couple of dips in the cold water.
• Walked around town checking out shops. Bought my new favorite jacket for $3.50 and met a toothless 15 year old kitty named Olivia.
• Hiked Humbug Mountain State Park with Catie and a photographer named Rowland and his wife Christie. Lovely people.

Catie, Rowland, and myself

sweet ole Olivia

Saturday 7/15

• Paddle-boarded twice: Hunter Creek in the morning and Secret Beach in the evening. I went traversed a cave in a sea stack!
• Climbed to a lowkey precarious rock to get a great view of Harris Beach State Park.
• Drank a brew during a lil fishing escapade.

Thursday 7/20

• Checked out Newport’s Bayfront with Julia and Catie. Super cute but where’s the wifi at?
• Took a WONDERFUL 2 hour nap
• Joined the North Coast Scholars and the REU’s for a bonfire on South Beach to send off a chill dude named Brady. Rode to and from the beach on the back of his pick up truck. It was special for sure.

Friday 7/21

• Woke up early and did a yoga class with the K(C)atie’s and Julia, followed by a grandiose breakfast at PigNPancake.
• Spent some much needed quality time with the other Scholars around the campfire.
• Tried to go herping in the creek that night but I didn’t find any herps, just some big slugs, a sweet white moth, some odonata nymphs, crawdads, some petable fish, and soaked clothes.

Saturday 7/22

• Cliff jumped into Tamolitch Blue Pool.
• Checked out an awesome waterfall whose name I can’t remember.
• Played Knock You Down by Keri Hilson in the car. It was lit.

I have spent an awful lot of time hunched over vats of acid washing bottles and syringes this week. Oddly, doing the dishes, whether with soap and water or 10% hydrochloric acid solution, is drudgery. The only excitement to be had was when my right glove began leaking. I expected the worst, but after rinsing with Milli-Q ultrapure water I was unharmed. I had the pleasure of throwing out the scary old gloves and donning a beautiful new pair that I can love and trust for the rest of the summer.

The experiment incubating pure water in plastic containers to look for an increase in the dissolved oxygen occurring as a result of leaching yielded interesting results. The 2 gallon ziplock bag showed quite a large increase in dissolved oxygen level in the ultrapure freshwater over several days. Unfortunately, the ziplock bag containing sterile seawater drained empty at some point during the incubation. The data on the logger from the drained bag showed a similar trend to the other bag, but the plot went wonky when the water started leaking. The five gallon carboys of pure water and sterile seawater showed much lower rates of leaching than the ziplock bags. Hmmm.

The glass BOD bottles are working out nicely. On Wednesday I went to Tillamook and collected water samples at low tide from several points in the bay that represent different mixing zones. I began incubating them on Thursday in BOD bottles. Temperature and light exposure have been difficult to control due to laboratory limitations, but wrapping the bottles in aluminum foil and storing them in a cooler in a dark room has helped keep them at a stable temperature and prevent light from triggering photosynthesis int he phytoplankton.

After 24 hours of incubation, we took oxygen readings and compared them to the oxygen levels in the water in the bay when the samples were taken. We noted significant decreases in oxygen, meaning the microbes were consuming oxygen at a rate that could be easily measured in a single day. This information answered key questions about the required size of bottle and length of incubation required to measure respiration rates in this environment. While biological oxygen demand has been measured in BOD bottles for many years and is a standard practice, measuring estuarine respiration rates in a complex system like Tillamook Bay is not the usual application. Knowing that we can use small samples of water and get results in a couple days is very helpful. If the oxygen decrease in the bottles levels off, it has been suggested that I add glucose to see if the microbes take off again and are carbon limited. Exciting!

Now I just need to prepare more BOD bottles. Back to the acid.