Barbecues, Burgers, and Beach Volleyball

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Zach Clemens

There seem to be two key factors that go into the field of conservation. First is finding/studying what it is you believe needs to be conserved. Second is convincing everyone else why the heck it’s such a big deal. I’ve always envisioned myself working primarily on the first side. I’m more scientific than social, a nerd, if you must. Yet this week I spent almost the entirety of my time working on the second side of conservation. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Reserves Program hosted several community outreach events across the coast, and my fellow interns and I were lucky enough to tag along for all of them! Remember that painfully clichéd “in the world of marine biology you either sink or swim” pun I made at the end of my last blog post? I hate to bring it up again, but it became even more appropriate during these outreach events.

First of all, as I mentioned earlier, this was basically my first experience on the outreach side of conservation. To add to that, at the time of the start of the first event, I had been in Oregon for exactly one week. Yet there I was preparing to act as a representative of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. I think I was justified in feeling a little bit intimidated. Our first event was a community barbecue in the town of Port Orford, which sits on the shore of Oregon’s first marine reserve (Redfish Rocks, look it up, it’s beautiful). Port Orford is a tiny fishing town with a lot of people who know way more about Oregon’s fish than I do, so I knew I had to be careful or I could talk myself into uncharted waters very quickly. But it’s not too difficult to talk to people about something when it’s something that you A) are knowledgeable of and B) really care about. Luckily, I know a few things about fish and marine conservation, and I care a lot about both.

Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve

The only stumbling block I encountered was my shoddy grasp on Oregon geography. I met people from Netarts, Yachats, Gold Beach, Brookings, etc. and I did a lot of smiling and nodding along, pretending like I knew where any of those places were. With the help of Google Maps, I eventually looked up all the towns I heard, and I was amazed at how far some people had come! The people of the Oregon coast (or at least those I have met so far) are impressive in their appreciation for our natural resources. Our main purpose for outreach was just to inform the public about who we are and what we’re doing in their oceans. Some who came were more interested in the free food than the free science, but it was remarkable how many were genuinely interested in the marine reserves and our monitoring methods. In Port Orford, our event attracted about 40 community members (quite impressive when you consider the town’s population is barely 1,000). That same evening we hosted a “Science at the Pub” event at a restaurant in Port Orford where we played Marine Reserves Bingo. Again we were able to get our message out to a lot of people. Port Orford was a huge success.

My fellow interns and I spent the next day hiking and snorkeling all in the name of collecting footage for the marine reserves image database (what a great job).

Hiking Humbug Mountain in the name of work

Then we were on the road again, this time up north to Garibaldi on the Tillamook Bay. Cape Falcon Marine Reserve, 10 miles north of Garibaldi was the most recent addition to Oregon’s protected waters, and we expected a different reception there than the one we received in Port Orford. The process of establishing Cape Falcon Marine Reserve was met with much greater resistance than Redfish Rocks. You wouldn’t have believed that though if you attended our barbecue in Garibaldi. We hosted over 100 people (in a town under 1000!) and had to run to the store to avoid running out of burgers. Not only were the numbers impressive, but the people of Garibaldi were eager to talk. I must’ve talked to two dozen different people about the marine reserves and explained what a SMURF is at least 10 times. There was even an incredibly friendly couple who expressed interest in the Sea Grant program and asked me for the address to this blog, which I was more than happy to provide (If that couple is reading this now, hello! Thanks for stopping by!). I shared info about the marine reserves and in return I learned so much about the history of Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay, and the state of Oregon. It was truly a fantastic experience. My hope is that our outreach events got at least a handful of citizens earnestly thinking about the future of Oregon’s coast, how they want that future to look, and how they might contribute to working towards it. That’s all I can ask.

Garibaldi barbecue after the rush had died down

This man knew everything there was to know about the history of Garibaldi. I was happy to listen.

After the outreach events I had a significant amount of downtime which I filled with hiking, biking, reading, running, and learning the real rules of beach volleyball. Concerning volleyball, one of the REUs living here actually told me “for someone so talented, you really don’t know anything”. I chose to take it as a compliment. Two weeks in, my experience in Oregon just keeps getting better. It won’t all be beach volleyball and barbecues I’m sure, but I’ll live with it.

Happy Hikers at Cape Perpetua

Week 2: Good, Good, Good, ~Expectations~

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Katie Gregory

Week 2: Good, Good, Good, ~Expectations~
…As the Beach Boys classic goes (or something like that).

This past week was my first full week on the job; I already feel like I’m getting the hang of our early morning routine on field days, and that I’m a contributing member of the team. I’ve dug up my fair share of clams, even correctly identifying (some of) them. I got to use the handheld GPS to navigate us from waypoint to waypoint, which requires a very good handle on cardinal direction, and which I have yet to master. This week was also fun because our team consisted of three women (a fact that did not go unnoticed by a fisherman on the dock, who laughed at what he affectionately called our “sexy Gumby suits”). We ladies worked two 11-hour days in a row, allowing us to finish early on Wednesday. We celebrated later that night by going out for dinner and drinks at the local 7 Devils Brewery, where my co-worker graciously picked up my tab. I sipped on a delicious in-house hard cider and enjoyed the company of my ODFW team, live music, and the collection of canines brought along by our fellow patrons (a dog-friendly brewery, does it get any better?!).

Expectations Meeting-

As this post’s title would suggest, this week we held our Expectations meeting between my mentors, myself, and the program coordinators at Oregon Sea Grant. I really appreciated the program’s effort to work together with the scholars and our mentors to establish a game plan for the next 8 weeks, making sure our work is oriented towards reaching our goals. I have been enjoying my time in the field and lab, but a main part of what I wanted to get out of working for ODFW this summer was learning how a state agency operates, at all levels. I wanted to take part in public outreach and learn about the regulation/monitoring/policy aspects in addition to the science we’d be conducting. I brought this up during our conference call and I really felt my voice was heard. In the days following both Tony and Scott Groth, shellfish biologist and project leader for the Oregon pink shrimp fishery (and my co-mentor), presented me with opportunities to take part in outreach, including manning the ODFW touch tank at the state fair and conducting creel surveys of clammers off several docks in the region. This was in addition to the helpful document they had previously made listing my responsibilities and activities for the remainder of the summer. Their flexibility and willingness to prioritize my learning objectives is a clear reflection of why they were chosen as Summer Scholar mentors.

Could Use a Hand (or 2)-

I don’t know if I’d call myself accident prone, per say, but I think it can be fully established that I do not have the best luck. My track record this year includes my identity getting stolen, my new laptop’s battery dying- and learning that the manufacturer had recently stopped producing said batteries, unknowingly driving around with a gas leak for a couple months, and more than a handful of visits to urgent care. And that is where I found myself once again on Thursday evening, complaining of an irritating rash on the back of my hands that had popped up earlier in the week but was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. After consulting with my supervisors, we thought it best to go get it checked out. And, because of all the work I’d been doing in the water/mud and with animals, they informed me that this was likely a worker’s compensation issue and that it would be best to file a claim. So started my first (and hopefully last) encounter with worker’s comp paperwork, which seems to be quite the process. The urgent care facility was very nice, and newly renovated. I was seen by an older gentleman, and after a brief look at my hands we began a long brainstorming session to find out what could possibly be causing the bizarre red, bumpy rash isolated entirely to the back of my hands. My answers to his questions did not reveal a definite cause, nor did his answers to mine. His final advice was to act as a “Sherlock detective” and keep an eye out for things that could only be coming into contact with that part of my hands. He prescribed me a mild steroid cream to be applied twice a day and sent me on my way. It is now Sunday and they don’t seem to be improving much. :/

Bandon Pacific Seafood-

One cool thing I got to do this week was tour the unloading area of the Bandon Pacific Seafood wholesale plant, across the street from the Charleston ODFW office. These seamen hard at work pulling fish from their piles and operating heavy machinery were a greasy lot, but many of them greeted us or at least did not seem disturbed by our presence. We met up with Dean, a 20-yr employee of the Charleston ODFW office, who was dressed in foul-weather gear, wielding a large knife and standing over an icy bin of black cod (which is actually not a cod, but a sablefish). He was making precise cuts into both the belly and head of the fish, to identify the sex and remove the otoliths, respectively. Otoliths, literally meaning “earstones”, are the ear bones of a fish and are used to age the fish and determine growth rate. He was also taking length and weight measurements of the fish. He is clearly an expert at what he does, and was eager to explain each step to me. He even cut a weird sac-like parasite out a fish and popped it so I could see the black, congealed blood inside. It was gnarly (a seagull was later seen eating it- again, gnarly). The smell of rotting fish and being surrounded by death did not make the dock my favorite place, but I did learn a lot. One of the things I was most happy to hear was that they do their best to find an economic use each part of the fish/shellfish they catch. For example, shrimp are boiled and peeled before being packaged. The peeled exoskeletons are then saved and sold as fertilizer!

This week had its up and downs but I am very much loving Oregon and looking forward to the weeks to come. Hope everyone has an enjoyable, safe Fourth of July!

Best,

Katie Gregory

Week 2: Mud and Eelgrass

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Julia Indivero

This week, green crab monitoring was in full swing. We sampled across five different sites throughout the South Slough, setting 12 crab traps at each site. Everything went pretty smoothly—except for getting stuck to the mud up to our thighs at one point. We had been warned about the mud here, but we were not quite ready for what that could actually entail. As I walked toward the small stream of water still remaining at low tide, my boots started sinking more and more into the mud until I was up to my thigh. Another intern came over to help, and then she got stuck too. We were eventually able to get our feet out of our boots and army-crawl out, and then had to dig our boots out as well. My entire lower body and arms were covered in thick, sulfurous mud. I wish I had pictures, but we were too covered in mud to touch our phones. It was all worth it, though; so far, we’ve caught green crabs at every site, for a total of about 40 crabs across all sites. In the other side of Coos Bay, they have been even more abundant this year. Another researcher caught over 100 green crabs within one day. As we continue to re-sample sites throughout the next few weeks, we will be able to more accurately compare their abundance to previous years and provide a more complete assessment of the population trend.

Because green crabs will be a majority of my time here and I will be writing about them frequently, I thought I would take a digression and also write about an eelgrass research project that I assisted on this week. Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is a seagrass that can form dense beds along bays and estuaries. These beds provide important habitat and nurseries for many shellfish and fish and provide feeding ground for birds and other wildlife. Eelgrass has been declining throughout the United States, with various natural and anthropogenic causes: nutrient runoff, invasive competitors, shellfish harvesting practices, rising temperatures and sea levels, and eelgrass wasting disease.

Researchers from Oregon State University are conducting a multi-year study on eelgrass decline along the Oregon coast, including sites in Coos Bay. We took a boat out to two sites with dense eelgrass beds. We then navigated to approximately 40 randomly selected GPS coordinates throughout the site. At each GPS point, we counted the number of eelgrass shoots within a .25x.25 m square (called a quadrat) and collected a single eelgrass shoot and all of the algae present within the quadrat. These samples of eelgrass and algae will be processed later for various measurements, including quantifying the biomass and the number of epizoa (animals living on the surface of the eelgrass). Even just spending a few hours in the eelgrass beds offers a glimpse of how much life they can support. We saw baby starfish smaller than a pinky nail clinging to eelgrass, countless shellfish and crabs, and birds such as gulls, cormorants, and even a few Great Blue Heron out on the eelgrass beds at low tide, searching for food. It was a beautiful place to spend some time doing research.

The eelgrass bed site (called Clam Island) that we sampled at low tide. At low tide, the eelgrass is matted down as the water recedes. But as the tide rises, the water will allow the eelgrass to lift up, and it will more resemble a forest of grass.

Another intern and I counting eelgrass shoots at one GPS coordinate at Clam Island. The white square is called a quadrat: at each GPS coordinate, the number of eelgrass shoots within the quadrat were counted and algae and eelgrass from within the quadrat were collected.

Me standing at the edge of Clam Island where the water is starting to come back in as the tide rises. (My eyes are open this time!).

More information about eelgrass:

http://www.habitat.noaa.gov/abouthabitat/eelgrass.html

Coos Bay or Coos Bae? I guess we’ll see in 10 weeks…

Posted on June 27, 2017 by sea_jam

Well it’s taken a week but I feel as if I’m finally settled in here. I’ve bought groceries twice now, I’ve put a few posters on my wall, and I’ve even gone camping in the forest already! Despite how “at home” I may feel, this place is quite opposite from Southern California. Tall palm trees have been replaced by thick pines, filling up my car has become somewhat of a less bourgeois valet service, and the beautiful variety of skin colors so representative of the SoCal community have been replaced by white, white, and more white. Ahhh, ‘merica. But what the Oregonians lack in diversity they make up for with genuine kindness. We had the day off on Wednesday so I took the time to check out the Farmer’s Market in downtown Coos Bay. I’ll tell you that was the best first impression I have gotten from any town in my 22 years of life.

Coos Bay Farmer’s Market

Perusing the local goods was enjoyable, not because of the food and new sights but because of everyone’s patience and kindness. Instead of just telling me about their product, vendors would ask where I was from and ask how I was liking Oregon, where I would reply with “Dude I’ve been here for a day, give it a rest” (of course I didn’t say that but that would be pretty wild if I did huh?). Well towards the end of the market my attention shifted towards an old-timey tea stand painted white and aquamarine with a tea-lady whose dress matched her stand. I was going to purchase a refreshing iced tea but decided against it last minute because I had already spent more than I probably should’ve. Instead of getting annoyed that I had backed out of a purchase so late in the game, Tea Lady gave me a free iced tea! What a gal! Happily zipping my raspberry-lemon tea, I checked out the nearby skate shop/thrift store called TimeBomb. I had briefly checked it out the day before with Catie so after another brief run through their goods I decided to move on, but just before I walked out I noticed there was a staircase leading to who-knows-where. So, naturally I went upstairs to see what was good, and man, I am glad I did because I ended up walking into an iPhone repair shop (my iPhone’s camera has been broken for months). Well, after a few minutes of jibber-jabber, Good Guy Terry fixed up my iPhone’s camera in 10 minutes, charging me a grand total of $20, which was $50 cheaper than if I would’ve gone to Apple. After the deal was all done, he even threw in a free charger. What a guy!

Tea Lady’s reflection (I should really get her name next time)

After that I continued to walk around some more till I ended up in this wine shop which oddly smelt like my old trumpet teacher’s practice room. Almost immediately, the woman who owned the shop walked up and greeted me. Tamara was a portly woman, probably in her early 50s, with long brown hair and a subtle but noticeable accent that I couldn’t quite identify. I told her I wasn’t looking for anything to buy but was new in town and just was checking out what the town was about. She saw me looking at the map of the Bay Area (nope, not SF, Coos Bay County is the Bay Area of Oregon) and shuffled over to help point out a few things. Eventually Tamara took me to her back room where she had a less jumbled map (refer to image below for jumbled map). There she gave me information about the layout of the town and the larger region, pointing to areas where I could camp along the coast. After telling me that I could get the same map by checking out the Chamber of Commerce across the street, I figured it was time to take my leave. But as I walked away Tamara must’ve noticed the Germany patch on my backpack because she excitedly exclaimed “Ahh Deutschland!” before adding some German words to the mix. And it’s funny because the entire time we were talking I was wondering where her accent was from and it took her to speak German to realize she sounds exactly like Petra (you don’t know her but she’s a dear family friend and a wonderfully quirky German lady). I was shocked! I immediately replied to her in German and I can confidently say that she was more shocked than I was. Well, Tamara and I talked for another 20 minutes, switching back and forth between German and English with her sometimes correcting (okay it was frequent) my out of practice grammar. She told me about how she immigrated here from Stuttgart in 1971, why she prefers growing plants in pots rather than gardens, and how her health hasn’t been as good as it could be these days. At one point I almost teared up because it was such a beautiful moment and it made me miss my Oma and Opa and sister and mother and the rest of my family overseas. Tamara noticed and gave me a comforting embrace. She then told me to go on my way because I’m a young man and shouldn’t be wasting my afternoon talking to an old woman. But she gave me her card and told me I should return and that I should come by and have dinner with her and her husband at their home one day. I walked out of there knowing that I would be back again soon.

Jumbled Map of OR Bay Area

Well, I checked out a few more shops after that and while no interaction was as special as the one with Tamara, everyone was disgustingly nice and very open to having a friendly, engaging conversation. I know it’s only been a week, but I like it here in the South. I know I haven’t described what I will be doing for the summer at all but I figure there will be plenty of more posts for that kind of thing. I can tell you it is incredibly dope and that I am extremely excited to see what comes of the next nine weeks, both personally and professionally.

Coquille River Falls chillin’

Red Fish Rocks Outreach Event

Posted on June 26, 2017 by sea_tys

Blog week 1

The first week of an internship is always interesting. Meeting (and forgetting the names of) countless people, events loaded with free food and really getting to know the ropes of the work you’ll be doing for the rest of the summer. For the next 10 weeks I will be working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in their marine reserves department. My job will be to assist in the communications and outreach programs. This includes going into the field to record what the science team is doing and communicating it in a way that the public will understand what they are doing and why it is so important to be doing this monitoring work. We will also be following the human dimensions team as they implement their surveys to learn more about the publics’ opinions on the reserves so that we can better serve the public. Our main message channels include all types of social media, town hall events and community engagement events. One of which we will be going to this weekend in Port Orford! It is a BBQ (with a side of science) where anyone can come and ask us anything about the science, marine environment, reserves, etc. Port Orford is located right next to the Redfish Rocks marine reserve, the first marine reserve established in Oregon. The community is very interesting as they were the ones who suggested that a marine reserve be established. Other communities have fought the marine reserves when proposed by the state. The Oregon coastal communities have been hit extra hard by the economy and with many relying on commercial fishing as the source of income, a marine reserve does not sound like the ideal situation. Port Orford was in the same boat, a heavily fishing town that whose economy was hurting. However, instead of fighting the idea of a marine reserve, they welcomed it seeing the possible long-term benefits of protected waters for fisheries as well as possibilities for increased tourism.

This weekend’s event is aimed at answering questions that fishermen and locals still have about the reserve. It will also give them a chance to find out about how they can get involved in the research and feel like they are part of the reserve. For fishermen we have hook and line surveys they can participate in as well as SCUBA surveys if they are qualified scientific divers. We will be having a BBQ lunch in the afternoon where they can ask us any questions, pick up fliers and sweet marine reserve swag. In the afternoon we will have a pub science bingo game to spread more knowledge about the reserve. The bingo sheets are loaded with fish species, benthic species, research techniques, different habitats and facts about the reserves. All of these are related to the marine reserve that the public is connected to. Our marine science monitors are going to be presenting the bingo in an informational way. Science, bingo and a pub? There’s nothing better!

All of this is in partnership with the Port Orford Marine Reserve Community team. Their involvement has been huge for the implementation and communication about the reserves.

A tourist in my own life

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Allie Blanchette

I never thought I’d be the person to experience culture-shock. I especially never expected it to happen in my home-country, in a town not that different from the place I grew up. I’m from a small town in Maryland, a suburb grown out of farm country at the intersection of two decently small highways. I went off to college in Los Angeles, excited to be on the west coast and ready to adapt to the city life as quickly as possible. Four years later, I considered myself a local.

One week ago today, I was graduating from UCLA, packing up my bags, and getting ready to fly up to Oregon. I’d never been to Oregon until this week, but from google images and the TV show Portlandia, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was in for: lots of trees, lots of water, and some pleasantly quirky Oregonians. It wasn’t until I got here that I realized how different Newport (the town I am currently living in) is from Los Angeles, and even Maryland.

This past Wednesday I wanted to go into town. The one small thing standing between our Sea Grant Intern dorms and the rest of Newport is one very large bridge. I don’t have a car, so I decided I’d take the bus, just like I’d always done in LA. Turns out there is only one bus in Newport and it runs a total of five loops around the town per day. I managed to somehow catch the last bus, which is harder than it seems as there are no bus signs here. My confusion with this was confirmed once on the bus as a gentleman informed me “It’s Newport, we don’t have signs.” The casual irregularity of this system was further enforced when the bus driver told me “You just gotta holler at me when you want to get off.” So, I hollered as best I could and strolled off the bus about a block past the store I was aiming to go to. Once ready to go home, I faced my next challenge of getting home without the bus running. I asked the women in the store if there was a taxi service. They said no, “It’s Newport, you’re lucky to even have the bus running.” I half-heartedly asked if uber existed here? Definitely not. So, is my best option to walk across the bridge? “Yes,” they said, “but hold on to the railings, it’s really windy.” And windy it was. I don’t know what the speed was, but it was windy enough that every time someone walked into the store, the door would burst open and rattle the ceiling tiles. It was the kind of wind that gives you a little shove forward while walking if you pick your foot up at the right time. So, I braced myself, held on to the railing, and walked across this bridge like an obvious out-of-towner. I’d also like to point out that I have a rather large fear of heights, and this bridge is 246 feet tall (according to Wikipedia).

Yaquina Bridge

I survived the walk across the bridge, with a burst of adrenaline as the prize for conquering my fear. I decided to take this opportunity to go for a run and explore some of the surrounding area. I picked a route that would send me to a nice beach run. As I’m running, I look to my left to discover a surprise secret waterfall carved into the bluff right next to me. It was amazing! A secret not-so-little waterfall hiding in the cliffs! It must have been about 30 feet tall. I ran over and stuck my feet in. The cold water felt as refreshing as if I were drinking it. I climbed all around the edges of the waterfall, sliding in the dark gray mud like a little kid.

The magical waterfall

What is this mysterious place that I’m in? A place where they don’t have ubers (even my small town in Maryland has uber) and Mother Earth humbly juts out waterfalls right onto the beach. I read a Humans of New York post recently which reminds me a lot of this point in my life. The interviewee was describing how she wanted to move to a new country because she wanted to be a tourist in her own life again. After four years of trying to become a local in Los Angeles, a city swimming with tourists, I find myself in a state I’ve never been, in a sleepy beach-town with a population of ten thousand and once again a tourist in my own life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaquina_Bay_Bridge

Week 1

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Jeremy Jennings

I’m happy to be back in Newport. Last summer I worked in the oyster culture laboratory at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. Behind the oyster lab, in a mysterious concrete building, was the EPA, and I always wondered what they were up to. I only ever saw them washing off their boats in the yard. Now I know. The team I am working with includes chemists, computer modelers, engineers, biologists and other scientists. The facility is a top notch ecological research laboratory, and the project I will be helping out with involves gathering data on the water chemistry in Tillamook Bay in order to build a model of how the carbonate chemistry, pH and nutrients change over time in the Bay. This research will help all the stake-holders of Tillamook Bay better understand their waters and what to expect in the future as the climate continues to change.

I will also be helping on a related project involving the design and testing of a bag device designed to enclose a blade of living eelgrass in situ and monitor its rate of photosynthetic production and respiration by measuring changes in the gas concentrations in the water inside the bag. The bags currently being tested are the same bags that hold wine inside cardboard boxes at the store because the plastic is engineered to be impermeable to CO2, the gas of interest. I look forward to snorkeling over the eelgrass in Yaquina Bay, deploying and recovering these devices and refining the technique. I love what science can do with PVC, duct tape and plastic wine bags!

So far my time in the lab has been consumed by mandatory new employee training, tours, introductions and planning. I have also become intimately familiar with the EPA’s IT support process. I consider it a successful first week: I was assigned a computer, managed to gain full access to it within hours, assigned a custom password to it within days, AND got into their intranet training portal to access the mandatory training by day 4. Having worked for federal agencies in the past, this is lightning fast. I also received my first ID badge, featuring the mandatory unflattering picture, for which I am grateful and proud. Although it is just a temporary position, it feels good to be part of the EPA and an organization whose mission I can be proud of.

Next week I should get my first introduction to programming dissolved oxygen sensors, and hopefully go out on the water.

New Age in Newport

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Meagan Hayes

As a transplant from Monterey, CA I was definitely excited to return to a scenic coastal town after living in the Bay Area for four years. Over the past year I spent every free weekend traveling back and forth between the city and the California’s Central Valley, so getting to stay in one place for two months sounded like a treat. Bonus points for the tall trees and windy beaches, us NorCal kids don’t expect to do much swimming anyway.

My first day on the job I drove out to Salem with my mentor, Meg, and quite frankly chatted her ear off. In the Salem office I met a good amount of the Department of Land Conservation and Development staff and all of them seemed to take interest in my project. A few of them also had some hand in it over the years and I believe they were excited to see where I could take it being that it is my main focus during my time here.

Beauty of the bridge.

The official title of my project is the Oregon King Tides Photo Initiative. This project is actually an international initiative dependent on citizen science. Coastal communities around the world are asked to take pictures of “King Tides”, or the highest tides of the year, and standard high tides for comparison. This helps coastal management organizations visualize and plan for the ways in which these communities may be affected by sea level rise. Newport is a prime location to witness the King Tides in the winter and is where I’ll be working for the next 10 weeks.

Although a lot of my work involves sorting through photos and developing ways to discuss the importance of this project, I will have the chance to do some field work! Many of the photos sent in do not include the “normal” high tides comparison shots. Throughout the summer I will travel up and down the coast a few times to make sure we gather the missing pieces and develop a clear message about why this project matters.

Drew some inspiration from past posters, but still proud!

My first week was mostly full of correcting the photos uploaded to the Flickr page that had missing or scrambled information. Meg had mentioned that most of the participants were from *much* older generations… and it showed just a bit. One of my own goals this summer is to help Meg create a stronger social media platform for the project so people of all ages are informed and start to get involved (follow @oregonkingtides on Instagram!). Social media has be become an incredible marketing tool in the last 5 years and I see so much potential in it. If used correctly, projects like this and others that depend on citizen science can truly gain massive numbers of dedicated participants and continue to educate the public on why the issue of our rapidly-changing planet is important.

My favorite part of the week was getting to do some graphic design work for posters being used at an upcoming beach bash. This project has so many great opportunities for me to be creative. I also feel obligated to learn as much as I can about photography which has really helped get me outside to explore and take some photos.

Tell them Meagan sent ya

On my lunch breaks I usually grab a Dutch Bros (they are a true delicacy in California!) and head to the beach to play around with my camera. I’m hoping I’ll soon be contacted by Dutch Bros offering me a large sum for advertising their coffee so well.

Lastly, I found both a gym and a natural foods store where I can lift weights and purchase my favorite vegan snacks. My personal goal is to hit a couple personal records while I’m here and try some new recipes out on my roommates. If anyone misses work due to food poisoning that’s probably my fault, apologies in advance! Newport may be small but it’s full of kind and passionate people. Cheers to week one and embarking on a new adventure.

It took me five minutes to figure out how to set the exposure on my camera to take this picture but I’d say it was worth it!

Week 1: Introductions – To Oregon, my co-workers, program-mates, job, and more!

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Katie Gregory

*Please click on photos throughout to view associated captions*

Week 1:

After a long day of exceptionally smooth travel (still thankful for that) I arrived in Corvallis, OR at the Oregon State University campus ready for orientation the next morning. On Monday we met up for a small, informal breakfast to finally meet the program coordinators face-to-face rather than via email, as well as the other Summer Scholars. The lax atmosphere continued throughout the day as we played (dare I say) fun ice breakers and listened to presentations on what to expect from our summers/ what Oregon Sea Grant is all about. We even went to lunch at a great little café for Mexican food before heading out to Newport to the Hatfield Marine Science Station (OSU’s marine campus). There, I got my first glimpse of Oregon coastline and met my mentor for the first time; Tony D’Andrea, project leader/supervisor for Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife’s Shellfish and Estuarine Habitat Assessment of Coastal Oregon (SEACOR) project through the Marine Resources Program. I got to spend the night there and hang out with my fellow scholars and other students staying in the housing on campus, which was a very fun way to relax after a day of information overload and recovering from jetlag.

Day 2 began with a riveting session of paperwork and reading of lengthy protocols to learn just what it means/takes to be part of ODFW. We took the forms mobile as we started the drive from Newport to my final destination of Charleston- I signed many a form to indicate my understanding of safety procedures and agency policies (the scenic ocean views from the pacific highway were a frequent and welcomed distraction throughout). I felt very official and excited to be an employee of a state agency that does so much. Once we got to Charleston, a town on Coos Bay where I would be living and working, I checked into my room at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (The University of Oregon equivalent of OSU’s Hatfield campus) and unpacked a little bit before meeting back up with Tony. We toured the lab we’d be using which is shared with researchers from the South Slough estuary, the garage where all our equipment is stored, the boat, and the ODFW office where I got to meet more members of the agency. Everyone was very nice and answered my barrage of questions (I feel like my first week was essentially me asking everyone a million questions). I learned that my position would be aiding in field work for the shellfish assessments of Coos Bay, which would help with informing fishery regulations for the area. I would also be an extra set of hands for whichever ODFW project needed me, and I expressed a desire to be part of their community outreach and education programs, as I have a growing interest in science communication.

Wednesday morning was a 5 AM start time for field work on the boat, using a sampling method called megacoring (more on that later, when I can use photos to accompany the description: a picture’s worth a thousand words, right?). It was a brisk day, with a LOT of wind. Common for these parts, but not what I’m used to calling “summer”. The water tends to stay in the 50’s so we donned dry suits paired with fleece onesies underneath, many base layers, extra socks, boots, and our ODFW hats (which I’m still stoked about) to stay warm. After a few hours in the field, we returned to land to rinse off the boat and sampling materials. I discovered there’d been a tear in my suit and I ended up soaked from the waist down- just my luck, but a good reintroduction to the joys of field work. Thursday (day two of 5 AM start time) was originally going to be like Wednesday, with more work from the boat and some new stuff (for me) surveying low tide habitat. However, mother nature had her own plan of very high wind speeds, so we opted to stay close to land and conduct the surveys at a nearby tidal flat site- Charleston Triangle.

Methods: The sampling strategy used for these surveys is called the Rapid Assessment Method (RAM). Previous bathymetry data is used to map tidal levels across the study area, ensuring that samples were taken across all tidal elevations. A handheld GPS is programmed with randomly generated waypoints displayed both as a grid and as points spread intermittently between rows.

At each waypoint designated “grid” a 1 m²quadrat is placed, and before any disturbance occurs, a photo is taken with the site location and waypoint number for identification purposes. Within the quadrat environmental data such as sediment temperature, anoxic layer depth, and sediment type are taken. Biological data including percent of algal or eelgrass cover on surface, shrimp borrow density, clam “show” density, and physical presence of clams living below the surface are taken. This is done by using a hand rake to disturb the top ~15 cm of sediment. Species observations are also made for a 2 m radius surrounding the quadrat, which can be used to dub the area a clam/shrimp bed, even in the absence of those organisms within the quadrat.

For the “random” waypoints the Detailed Assessment Method (DAM) is employed in addition to RAM. The supplementary data includes collecting above-ground eelgrass blades and sediment samples for total organic carbon and grain size analyses. The eelgrass samples were collected in a 0.25 m² quadrat within the larger quadrat. The placement is determined by a random number generator. The same goes for sediment samples within the larger quadrat. These waypoints are also marked with a stake and attached buoy for future megacoring sampling.

By Thursday afternoon I was pretty much exhausted from traipsing in the mud (sorry for all the yawning, Tony) as we went over ODFW’s payroll system and I was given my employee computer login, with access to project files and agency documents.

5 AM Friday came all too soon, but as we had accomplished so much the day before, and Charleston Triangle is a fairly small site, we were able to finish the rest of the waypoints quickly, resulting in an early end to the day. J I used that time to take a sizeable nap, start this blog post, and spend some time in the nearby Marine Life Center (which I know I’ll be returning to since it’s free, interesting, and the volunteers are super nice!).

I also took time throughout the evenings/weekend to make friends with other interns living in my hallway and their friends from the South Slough Estuary Research Reserve. We lit off sparklers, took many a trip to Walmart, and hiked out to waterfalls at Golden and Silver Falls State Natural Area. The beauty of Oregon is absolutely awe-inspiring, and I am so glad I get to experience it.

This place is ferntastic!

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Catie Michel

Yes, we are starting with plant puns, in dedication to my guzmania bromeliad – who unfortunately did not survive the move to Oregon. The 100 degree wind blowing through my air conditioning-less CRV for the greater portion of 13 hours did a number on the tropical-turned-houseplant that prefers gently filtered-through-understory sunlight and a slight misting in the morning. “You brought plants?” my fellow Sea Grant scholars chuckled. Beleaf it or not, I did. There’s no need to read between the pines…I just like plants.

Polystichum minutum. Golden and Silver Falls Natural Area, June 2017.

My first week in southern Oregon has indeed been ferntastic. Having never visited the state, I am pleasantly surprised by its breadth of diverse vegetation, which significantly differs from the dry, Mediterranean climate of where I attend school in San Luis Obispo, California, and the semiarid climate of my hometown of Denver, Colorado. A favorite plant encountered here so far is the sword fern (Polystichum minutum). Many other understory plants I have become familiar with include vine maple (Acer circinatum), salal (Gualtheria shallon), and pacific rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophyllum).

Having only ever lived either near central Californian coastal areas or landlocked mountainous areas, I have been most excited to encounter a subspecies of lodgepole pine: P. contorta var. contorta, or shore pine.

P. contorta var. contorta. Source.

These trees have specially adapted to living conditions too harsh for their fellow lodgepole cousins. They are therefore the dominant species here in their northern range, growing in rocky sites and sandy soil and surviving powerful salty winds. The unique shore pine is of keen interest to me as it is a symbolic representation of why I feel quite at home here: coastal Oregon = forests + the ocean. The southern Oregon coastal mountains support highly diverse plant species because the region is a transition zone between the Coastal Range and the Klamath/Siskiyou Mountains.

Ecoregions of Oregon. Source.

Learning the ecology of the places you visit creates a special connection between humans and nature. Instead of just aesthetically experiencing the views, fresh air, and songbird calls, the species of plants and animals around you become familiar as you learn their names. For those of us who are particularly ecologically inclined, this is much like seeing old friends*.

This type of outdoor experience is known as experiential tourism, and it is what I will be working on this summer with the Wild Rivers Coast Alliance for Oregon’s Southern Coast. Much like interpretation, experiential tourism encourages the visitor to learn about the contextual and ecological meaning of what they are experiencing in order to form a long-term, transformational relationship between visitor and environment rather than a distant, transactional relationship. This type of interaction with nature creates personal meaning in the tourist and not only provides an understanding of the species’ names, it also encourages a deeper understanding about the species’ important role in its balanced and complex greater ecosystem.

Our project aims to build a sustainable, experiential tourism program for this region that enhances the resilience of the South Coast’s livelihoods, people, and ecosystems through economic, community, and conservation initiatives. We then hope to create a tourism development training program to help other coastal communities throughout the country prioritize ecosystem health and economic opportunity in environmentally sensitive and significant places. Stay tuned for more!

Silver Falls, June 2017.

*(Fronds)

Sea Grant Scholars

Learning through experience, for the future of our oceans