Tourism as it was Meant to Be

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Almost any avid golfer knows that Bandon Dunes is regarded as the “Mecca of American Golf”. With its miles of beautiful rolling green hills overlooking the ocean, it’s easy to understand why. Many celebrities, pro athletes, and golf enthusiasts like to escape to the resort for a few days, and some even refer to it as “man camp”. But what many don’t realize is that there so much more to Bandon Dunes than golf.

Mike Keiser, the owner of the resort, saw the needs of the community and the positive impact clean tourism has on the area. He founded the Wild Rivers Coast Alliance (WRCA) to fund triple-bottom-line projects in the community. The net proceeds made from the Bandon Preserves course goes towards the WRCA, which then goes into grants for other organizations serving the Sothern Oregon coast. Even the course itself emphasizes the beauty of the area, featuring the endangered and protected plant species silvery phacelia. Some organizations that had projects funded by the WRCA this past year include the Oregon Coast Visitors Association, Beaver Slough Drainage District and community members in fighting against the invasive species gorse. The WRCA and the Bandon Dunes Resort are prime examples of tourism as it should be; providing visitors with an experience of a lifetime while highlighting features of the area and putting profits back into the community and environment.

As an Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholar, I am working with OSU extension and WRCA to develop curriculum for training guides and outfitters on the Oregon coast. I’ve loved getting to explore Bandon and learn about everything the tourism at the resort has done to help the community. It’s been an amazing experience so far learning about the impact tourism can have on communities, and I look forward to learning much more as the summer continues.

The Human Dimension of Marine Reserves

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Mission:  To inherit the knowledge of every place and people I call home. 

 

There’s a first for everything. First job, first road trip, first time meeting the people you now cherish. Being a Summer Scholar promises to be full of firsts: this will be the longest that I have been away from home (Seattle, WA), is my first time doing human dimensions research, is my initiation into the world of working for the government and policy-related work, and is my first internship. I am incredibly grateful that the Oregon Sea Grant in association with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife trusted me to do this work and brought me to where I am today.

Also, thank you mom, dad, loved ones, and my extended family at the University of Washington for all you have poured into me.

Me on Nye Beach at sunset

Image result for marine reserves odfw

For the next ten weeks I will be working with the ODFW’s Marine Reserves Program on the Human Dimensions Research Project. This type of work is fascinating, but ultimately I selected this project because of who would become my mentors.  Tommy Swearingen is the project leader and is a one man show of expertise, initiative, and charisma. He oversees at least 15 different studies that assess the socioeconomic impacts of marine reserve implementation. He has had a Summer Scholar under his wing every year since he was brought onto the team. Being a mentor to him means more than just supplying interns with work–he wants to understand where they come from, and how he can best help them become fully immersed in the work and contribute to their future goals. He is a researcher, but also a teacher. In only the first week under his tutelage, I have gained a comprehensive understanding of the history of Oregon’s coastal communities and of the scope of the Human Dimensions Research Project.

Fishing vessel at dusk approaching the Yaquina Bay Bridge

To ensure the marine reserves are not adversely affecting coastal residents, Tommy and his associates have collected socioeconomic data on the scale of communities to individuals. Seeing as the reserves only make up 3% of Oregon’s coastal area, these effects are difficult to disentangle from larger trends. This is where studies on the individual level–specifically of well-being, world view, and feelings–become crucial. For this, you need an anthropologist.

Specifically, you need Elizabeth Marino. Beth is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at OSU-Cascades, and every now and then she will be driving down from Bend, OR to conduct interviews on fishers and to mentor me. I am inspired by her outlook, knowledge, empathy, and dedication to her work. Just to give you an idea of her background, Beth is the author of Fierce Climate, Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska. This documents her decade-long research on some of the first climate refugees, the Iñupiaq people, who are running out of time while their home is engulfed by the sea. Needless to say, her work has real-world consequences.

I am humbled to be working under these incredible researchers and people. By the week’s end, I now know where I fit into the Human Dimensions Research Project:

  • First and foremost, I will be conducting interviews of fishers on their knowledge of the local ocean–which can span back five generations–and on how marine reserves might be affecting their livelihoods. Giving them a voice just might reveal effects that quantitative data fails to do alone.
  • Secondly, I am already in the process of coding (aka categorizing) open-ended responses of a well-being survey of coastal residents. This converts qualitative responses to quantitative data, which could reveal how geography, community culture, and economic well-being all correspond to people’s feelings. It also speaks to what people value and how much they are willing to give up for these values.
  • Lastly, I will be trained on how to maintain an ongoing database of the economic status of coastal communities.

I am beyond excited to see where this work takes me.

Other snapshots from my first week in Newport, OR, my home for this summer:

(Almost) every OSG Summer Scholar working at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. From left to right: Me, Abby Ernest-Beck (EPA), Dani Hanelin (ODFW), and Taylor Ely (ODFW-Marine Reserves). Not pictured + photocreds: Anna Bolm (USDA).

The expanse of Nye Beach, the first beach I visited upon arriving in Newport, looking at Yaquina Head.

A lush beach-side cliff of salal. Coming from a background in both terrestrial and marine science, I am seeing from daily excursions how the ecology of coastal Oregon is not very different from that of western Washington. It feels like home–except with massive beaches of soft sand.

Some of my new friends on the Sea Lion Docks in South Beach.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse, which we visited the very next day.

Silhouette at sunset. Each day is full here.

 

 

A New Coast, a New Home, and a New Perspective

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As I drove down a winding road in the mountains of western Oregon, I saw it for the first time: the Pacific Ocean. From afar, it looked much like the Atlantic, but the closer I got, the more I could see the new adventures each wave was carrying ashore for me. This summer marks my first time on the west coast, and I know for sure it won’t be my last. I grew up around Boston and have always been attracted to the ocean, but the older I’ve become, the more I’ve been drawn to the natural beauty and marine life of the Pacific Northwest. I aspire, upon completing my undergraduate degree, to bring my knowledge and passion of marine conservation to this region and make it my new home.

My first sunset over the Pacific Ocean

I’ve only been in Newport for a few days, but I’ve already had the opportunity to go to the beach, watch several beautiful sunsets, bike along the coast, and camp in a state park. I arrived a week later than the rest of the scholars due to the finishing of my SEA Semester, a program in which I spent 35 days sailing a tall ship 2,500 nautical miles through the Sargasso Sea and North Atlantic and studying Sargassum phylogenetic diversity and distribution. That means I’m not only adjusting to a new home and a new coast, but I’m also re-adjusting to life on land. While I may have the opportunity this summer to work at sea, the majority of my internship will take place on shore with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). For this job, I will be working with the ODFW fisheries research team to study the efficiency of remote underwater vehicles, also known as stereo-video landers, in developing fisheries-independent surveys of demersal fish populations in Oregon. I will be conducting video reviews of previously recorded stereo-video lander footage to study whether species composition and abundance varies between day and night. Understanding this parameter will help develop more accurate fisheries-independent data for stock assessments.

Throughout my undergraduate career in marine science, I’ve have grown increasingly more interested in fisheries conservation and management. Last summer I interned at the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center, and throughout the past year in the classroom I have learned a lot about fisheries management and economics. I’m excited this summer to experience a different type of workplace, as much of my previous work has been field-based, and to work hands-on in fisheries management. Tomorrow marks my first day in the office. Just as the Pacific Ocean became more scintillating the closer I got, this opportunity with ODFW gets more exciting as the minutes go by. I cannot wait to learn more about the project I get to assist, the marine life that thrives off the Oregon coast, and the ways fisheries science plays a role in marine conservation.

SSNERR: An Easy Sell

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A few years ago, the EMU (common building) at the UO was a complete mess. The halls were impossible to navigate and the space was making it harder for student life to flourish, so our government liaison decided to ask for government funding to build a new one. In addition to writing the proposal and going through all of the necessary steps, she held a meeting with the representatives in the EMU. She gave them only the room number, and every one of them turned up late to the meeting after frantically searching halls that more closely resembled mazes. When they finally made it to the meeting, they were greeted by our liaison and a presentation explaining the benefits of upgrading the EMU, which the officials had just experienced first-hand. Her plan worked, and today myself and thousands of other students happily attend events, lectures, and career fairs in a beautiful building that fosters student participation and interaction.

I’ll never forget when I heard that story, because it completely redefined the words “effective communication” for me. Effective communication isn’t just breaking down complicated terms and concepts so that people can understand them, but actually bringing people to the problem and getting them to connect with it. Knowing they would have meetings there in the future, and seeing what campus members were going through, those representatives had a personal stake in the improvement and maintenance of that building, and I hope to have that same impact at the South Slough National Estuarine Reserve (SSNERR) over the next ten weeks.

By connecting people with the SSNERR and the wonderful ecosystem that it protects, I hope to make people see that we all have a personal stake in protecting the environment. Summer camps, seminars, demonstrations, guided tours, research, and monitoring are just a short list of the many ways in which the staff, interns, and volunteers at SSNERR dedicate their time to showing people the magic of the outdoors and the importance of environmental research and protection.

On my most recent hike with one of my mentors, we reached this beautiful clearing and took a moment to take in the view. She told me, “you can kind of think of it like you’re trying to market the South Slough, and really, it’s such an easy sell.”

The Summer of Sea Grant Begins!

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I have just concluded my first week at Newport’s Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) as an Oregon Sea Grant summer scholar. I have been looking forward to this experience and am so grateful to call Newport and Hatfield home for the next nine weeks! I feel fortunate to have already been introduced to multiple research projects, though know I am only skimming the surface. There is such an array of research happening, I hope to learn as much as I can to help narrow my interests for graduate school.

My first day on campus, my mentor, Dr. Brett Dumbauld, took me out on the nearby Idaho Flats with Dr. John Chapman, a professor at Oregon State University. John and Brett have collaborated on burrowing shrimp and were taking a group of REU students out to pull sediment cores to look at the mud shrimp burrows (Upogebia pugettensis).

A sediment core pulled from Idaho flats, showing the burrows from mud shrimp.

A cross section of a mud shrimp burrow. Dr. John Chapman from OSU is investigating whether or not the burrows are used by the mud shrimp to grow and harvest food.

Brett is an aquaculture ecologist with the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), focused on the West coast shellfish culture industry. This summer we’ll be investigating habitat selection of Dungeness crab in response to threat from predation by Pacific staghorn sculpin. The habitats we will be testing are structured: oyster aquaculture and native eelgrass, and unstructured: open mudflat/sand. We spent time brainstorming until constructing the mesocosms we’ll use.

Cutting out holes for side windows and the camera setup.

A nearly finished mesocosm.

 

This week was also the graduate student poster session and Ignite Talks, five minute presentations showcasing selected work. From investigating native oysters as a viable market to understanding how anthropogenic sounds affect whale communication, I learned a lot about the diversity of research happening at Hatfield.

Other highlights of the week included: exploring the south jetty with my roommates, checking out the local brewery, camping in Drift Creek Wilderness, a NOAA wetting down party, new running trails, and walks on the estuary nature trail- just outside my door. I’m looking forward to what the rest of the summer brings!

Agate Beach from Yaquina Head in Newport, OR.

 

First Impressions

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I am very lucky and excited to be an Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholar. I’m from Richmond, Virginia and have been to Portland once before, so this whole experience is very new to me: new wildlife, new friends, new grocery stores, new sites, new workspaces, and new restaurants to try. And I am now realizing how this newness is important to my position with Wild Rivers Coast Alliance. I’m working on a project that surveys the products and pricing of whale watching, kayak, and salmon fishing tours along the Oregon coast. I’ll be analyzing this data to see what kind of experiences are out there and, in turn, communicate these findings to tour operators, scientists, and community members to boost tourism on the Oregon coast.

I was surprised by my first impression of Coos Bay. I was expecting a quaint, sweet coastal town like I’d seen on the internet or in movies. Instead, I found a place where nearly 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, have seen many run-down and struggling businesses, driven past several trailer parks, and noticed a high homeless population. There are some really great and beautiful places in Coos Bay, but the town seems to be struggling. I’m realizing that they could really use an economic boost, possibly brought on by sustainable tourism. Being new to this area and being able to make these observations has helped me realize how important tourism can be to these coastal towns and their community members. It has me even more excited to keep me working on my research to see how tourism affects these places.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep enjoying this beautiful place I get to call home for ten weeks, keep exploring this new area, and trying to identify all the cool wildlife around me!

Byways before highways

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To get to Oregon (specifically the northwestern coast) from my home state of Colorado, there are a number of different forms of transportation. You could fly to Portland and then either take a bus to wherever you need to get to, or you could pay an obscene amount of money for a short thirty minute to an hour flight to your destination. It is also possible to take a multi-day train ride from Denver to Portland, but that it is almost as much as (if not more than) a plane ticket. This leaves driving as one of the best options, if you have the time, as it gives ease of travel throughout Oregon. Therefore, this is exactly what I, along with my family, did just over a week ago.

While it is possible to reach coastal Oregon within 20 hours, we chose to take a slight detour and stop at Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park for a few days. I could go on and on about the bison in Yellowstone, the moose in Grand Teton, watching Old Faithful erupt, the amazing colors of the Grand Prismatic, or even the number of ways I intentionally tried, successfully, to annoy my sister throughout the four days (road trips are long, what was I supposed to do??), but instead I want to talk about the joys of America’s byways and the importance of taking “some old back road” as Rodney Atkins sang about in 2011.

It was not until a small bookshop in Jackson, Wyoming that I found these byways laid out in a National Geographic book. Much to the sometimes ambivalent hapiness of my family, this book became our new road map as we finished the road trip and over the last seven-ish days, I have seen three of these byways – SH-31 in Idaho and SH-30 & the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway (SH-101) here in Oregon. Since this is a blog about Oregon we are going to leave out the SH-31 from here on out…sorry Idaho.

State Highway 30 stretches throughout a large part of Oregon along the Columbia River Gorge. Despite the fact that I-84 does run directly into Portland and offers spectacular views of the Columbia River, it doesn’t allow the ability to see the surrounding area’s history. The drive is slightly more strenuous as there is a great deal of moving uphill and downhill, but is a stunning drive complemented by old stonework barricades lining the road and tunnels built during the early 20thcentury. One of the highlights is The Vista House outside of Troutdale. This viewpoint was once a place for travelers to stop off and rest and continues to do so all while offering a sweeping view of the gorge to both the east and west. While there are many tourist spots throughout this drive, the small businesses, some which are run out of resident’s gardens and front yards, were some of my favorite stops – including the small berry market where we got a snack and the lavender farm where we picked bunches of flowers.

View of Columbia River Gorge from The Vista House (looking westward)

The drive on SH-30, while steep, is quite rewarding

The Pacific Coast Scenic Byway is not only more relaxing than I-5, which is full of drivers who fail to understand that not driving twenty miles over the speed limit is not wrong or obnoxious…in fact it is called following the law, but it is also provides many great places to stop and view the Pacific Ocean and get healthy servings of seafood. Just north of Newport is the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, accessible for a small fee (or free with the annual National Park Pass, which I strongly recommend to anyone who is outdoorsy). Due to limited time – yeah I know that is ironic/hypocritical given everything I’ve said – I did not take the guided tour of the light house, but instead walked down and around the tide pools below the lighthouse. Having grown up in a family that liked seafood to a degree that made it unhealthy for anyone standing between us and a bucket of mussels, I had to stop and get some during my drive. Therefore, for lunch I stopped at a roadside shack and got fish tacos. It is hard to say it was fast food when I had to wait thirty minutes for my takeout given the lunch rush, but it was well worth the wait. The scenic byway ended in a spectacular view at the top of a hill from which I could see Cannon Beach, my home for the next few months, and Haystack Rock.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Oh yeah I almost forgot, my internship for the summer is working with Haystack Rock Awareness Program where we discuss with visitors the biodiversity of the intertidal zone surrounding Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach and where I will be performing human dimension research, but that is a “Song for Another Time” (great country song by Old Dominion that I recommend to everyone and anyone).

Never a bad day on the beach!

So don’t forget byways > highways…when you have the time to spare.

 

Everything Is New

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Visiting from Virginia and never having been to the West Coast before, everything is new to me. This first week has been full of excitement, from seeing the different vegetation and wildlife, to realizing different cultural norms. Just yesterday while working, I saw a Bald Eagle fly, watched curious Harbor Seals watch me, then later saw a Porcupine scuttle past me as I admired a Pacific Coast sunset. I’ve never seen any of this wildlife in the wild before, it’s wild. I’ve enjoyed hearing the haunting sounds of Cormorants and learning the birds that float nearby on the water are named the Pigeon Guillemot, it’s so fun to say!

My Sea Grant Summer Scholar position is to work with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on the Shellfish and Estuarine Assessment of Coastal Oregon (SEACOR) team. This means almost everyday I am on the water in Coos Bay taking samples of various clams, crabs, and shrimp. Once all the data is compiled the population levels and health of the species will be assessed so inform decision making on resource management. I wear a bulky dry suit that makes me feel like an astronaut, and when filled with air makes for a wonderful and fun floatation device to swim above Eelgrass when it’s too hard to walk through. I’ve learned a lot about the different local shellfish, and other slippery worms and sea slugs we find. Some of my work days begin at 5am which allows me to witness the busy marina of fishermen sailing off too.

I love not knowing what I will do each day, I spend a lot of time walking and discovering new beautiful places along the coast. Each day brings a new experience, and new people. Everyone I’ve met has been so kind, and happy to talk with me about our lives on a deeper level than just the surface. I am happy with my work and social life here, I’m loving Oregon.

 

Week 1 as an intern for the EPA: where science and regulation meet

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After several months of looking forward to it, I just finished my first week of the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholars Program!

The Hatfield Marine Science Center is primarily a research center for Oregon State University, but there are also several other buildings on the campus with various agencies. One of these buildings belongs to the EPA Office of Research and Development, and this is where I’m interning this summer.

Working for the EPA is an interesting mix of science and regulation. Since the EPA is primarily a regulatory agency, this research facility is not the standard EPA workplace. Even so, a lot of federal regulations carry over. All new employees are required to complete an extensive online training, which took two of my days this week. There are also in-person safety trainings, work meetings, and paperwork. After that, I spent my time reading research articles and getting caught up on some of the background knowledge related to my project. It was a slower start than I was expecting, but I enjoyed having time to educate myself about the topic before jumping into research. In addition, the researchers have been extremely friendly and welcoming, and it is exciting to see the many labs, research boats, and scientific equipment.

I was also able to see some of my first sights of the Oregon coast this week, including South Beach, Nye Beach, and Yaquina Head. In Bellingham, WA, where I go to school, the beaches are almost all rocky, so it is a treat to get to enjoy long sandy beaches! I’m so excited to have a whole summer to enjoy here, and my list of places to visit grows every day.

At the end of the day on Friday, my mentor, Cheryl Brown, returned from travelling for a conference and we were able to start planning out research plans for the summer. We have an exciting and complicated project sampling water quality in Tillamook Bay and rivers that enter into this bay. We will be taking samples from the streams and the bay itself to try and get a better idea of how humans and agriculture may be contributing to ocean acidification in the bay. Stay tuned for more updates throughout the summer!

First time in Oregon

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It has only been a week and I am already falling in love with Oregon. I am so grateful to be one of the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholars for 2018 and spend my summer in Newport. The project I am working with is in the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) Marine Reserves branch helping with ecological monitoring the reserves. So not only do I get to explore Oregon on my free time but also for work! Starting next week I will be conducting field work at three of the marine reserves: Otter Rock, Cascade Head, and Cape Perpetua. When I am not in the field I will be helping analyzing and summarize the data that ODFW’s Marine Reserve Ecological Monitoring Team collected last year. While there is both intertidal and subtidal monitoring that the department conducts, I will be focusing on the intertidal data and collection.

For work, my time will be split between sea star wasting monitoring and intertidal biodiversity monitoring. It is really awesome that the ODFW not only collects their own data for this but also works with other groups of researchers and citizen science projects to be able to collect tons of data and get a very good understanding of the areas that are protected. Occasionally I will be going out with these collaborators during their fieldwork to see first hand how these studies are conducted.

During my free time I have visited the beach,, boardwalk, and farmers market of Newport. Each time I go explore I gain new appreciation for this beautiful place that I get to live in for the summer. The awe-inspiring nature is not the only appeal of Oregon but also the culture of the towns and the people that live here. Everyone I have met is so nice and helpful. The best part is that almost everyone here is a dog person so wherever you go there are always tons of dogs which helps with missing my dog back at home.

 

Yaquina Head Lighthouse