Patience pays off!

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ODFW Adventures: Part III

To begin to describe my week, I will start by sharing my progress on my non-work-related goal for the summer, which was to learn how to cook. And not just make dinner from a package, but to create authentic meals that I usually find myself going to restaurants to satisfy my cravings. So this week I decided to take my cooking a step further–I cooked something I have never made before, Dahl. This Indian dish of lentils, vegetables, and spices may have taken me nearly two hours to make in our tiny kitchen, but my efforts were a success! Especially when it was served with rice, curried chicken, and naan! I hope to update everyone next week with another new dish!

At ODFW, the most exciting thing I accomplished was counting my very last sample on Friday afternoon, meaning no more bending over a microscope, no more clicking, and no more sore neck muscles! My patience and persistence has finally paid off! All in all, I counted 21 samples and 442 sub-samples that weighed 1-2 grams. It was a long process, but now that I’m finished counting I can use my online GIS training by applying it to this project! Although I still find GIS software to be quite complicated, the online course I took last week was extremely helpful and walked me step by step of how to make different “layers” of a map, using Yellowstone as the example. I learned how to create layers of trails, temperatures, precipitation levels, ranger districts, and other wonderful layers and features you can add to a map with this software. For my project I will be mapping the distribution and abundance of the herring eggs throughout the Yaquina Bay. The abundance that will be calculated with this map will then allow me to predict how many herring will be in the bay next season, and the fishing quota will be set at 20% of the predicted abundance. I am very excited to start the second half of this project in the coming week! 

On the Nearshore Strategy side, I spent the week finding sources to use for the supplemental climate change document my team will be writing. Once I found the articles my team suggested, I organized them into folders based on their emphasis on habitat (for the purposes of the Nearshore Strategy, rocky shore, sandy beach, rocky subtidal, soft-bottom subtidal, and open water) and/or impact type (changes in sea surface temperature, sea level rise, upwelling, hypoxia, storm intensity/erosion and wave height, ocean currents, interannual and interdecadal cycles, ocean acidification, and freshwater inputs). I have learned that although the ocean currently is and will experience many of these different impact types, many articles written by climate scientists and oceanographers focus on temperature changes. Finding this in my research frustrated me because I believe that the complex systems and processes of the ocean are effected by many different impact types, each of which is just as important as the last. Yet I am excited to read the articles in depth and search for more articles to learn more about how climate change will affect the ocean off of the Oregon coast. With these articles I will be creating an annotated bibliography for the climate change document this week that will likely become an appendix to the document. To prepare for this task, I had some practice making a reference sheet this week when I cited the articles Ali used in the overall strategy update. Although it was a great review of how to cite scientific articles, I learned that not all articles (especially when they are found on the internet) are easy or even possible to cite. So I figured out how to cite articles and sources with whatever information is available–I am now a citation master! With this useful skill set, I will be spending next week in the library if anyone needs to find me!

Drupal Training Session

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Hello all,

I hope everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing fourth of July weekend!

I spent the majority of last week taking classes on how to use Drupal (Drupal is the software I will be using to create the marine sciences website). The class was an all day event that went from Tuesday through Thursday, and a lot of information was presented in that time! By the end of the class, I definitely had a stronger grasp on the software than I did before! Although I do not yet have a webspace to begin creating the marine sciences site, the training course gave us a free training development site to play with. This last weekend I decided to spend some time messing around with my training site so that I could try applying some of the things I learned in the class to the content that I actually want to create.

While I have come a long way, I am still running into some trouble with Drupal in a few areas. So this week I plan to make some contacts. I hope to meet with Jenna, and then hopefully set up a meeting with someone in Central Web Services who can help me overcome some of my roadblocks! In the mean time, I plan to keep practicing with my training site until I receive notification that I have gotten my webspace. And, of course, I always have content to be working on so that will definitely be going on this week as well!

One thing I’ve realized this week is a keen appreciation for what the Oregon State communications people do! On the outside it doesn’t seem too difficult to create a website, but the software is complex! I look at the vast array of websites that OSU has now and it really is incredibly impressive! Everyone has been so helpful, and I hope to be on my way to creating a rockin’ website soon!

Until next time!

Shealyn

Saving Oysters in Oregon – week 3

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office time.

For the first time in 3 weeks, I spent some good bonding time with my desk.  I finally got my internet, login credentials, email, etc figured out, so I spent a good portion of this week doing some office work.  Plus, the tides weren’t so great the beginning of this past week and it was raining, so it was best to stay in.

What I’ve learned:  Science isn’t all about the lab or even field work.  You have to spend time writing grants to apply for funding, putting together reports, seminars, or powerpoints for meetings, and gathering information into summaries void of scientific jargon so that the vast majority of people can understand them.  The last one is what I did.  I read many many many scientific articles, powerpoints from workshops, and shellfish restoration manuals, and pulled together all the important pieces of information.  I’ve noticed that my advisor has to spend a huge amount of time at his desk, too.  He’s busy writing grants to secure salaries, conference calling to inform and spread knowledge to policy makers, among other things.  I guess it’s just how things are.  I personally think it adds a bit more variety to the job.

I also did online research on how to improve my Oly ROCS (we’re going to implement those next week, so you’ll be hearing about those soon!).

 

searching for oysters.

There’s a plan to build a liquid natural gas pipe through Haynes Inlet of Coos Bay, and despite much community resistance, that plan was approved.  Was.  Then it was brought to their attention that the Olympia oyster (species at risk) may be inhabiting areas that would be affected by the current plan.  They wanted someone to go and check if they were there, so my advisor, Laura (a postdoc) and I did just that.

In some places, they were amazingly abundant.  Others, there were smatterings.  And in one area, none at all.  We could basically foretell where they would be by the different characteristics of each area.  The rocky shorelines  had more oysters than the muddy, almost anoxic flats.  It’s not always that simple though.  We also began to see that the residence time of water was a major factor of whether or not juveniles would be present.  Salinity is important too.  I also observed that there were many juveniles, but not many older, larger oysters in some areas.  I began to question whether these areas with seemingly abundant populations of oysters were actually good for them.  Did certain environmental conditions create hostile environments that led to premature deaths?  Is there good larval recruitment but something else that’s killing them?  Or are they thriving just below the surface where we can’t see them, and the ones above the tideline just can’t tolerate being out of water for that long?

I know I won’t be able to answer all of these questions, but I hope I can get closer to knowing the answers.  They’re important questions for the restoration effort.

What’s next:  probably more field work for their restoration, and working more on the Oly ROCS.  I’ll let ya know next week!

 

Research! Research! Research! … er Investigation

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Hello all,

So, normally I feel like I have to push myself to write these things. However, I just had a coffee so now I’m all jazzed up!!!

This week I’ve been researching all week. Rather I should say “investigating” because the word “research” has such a strong undertone to it. I’ve been investigating the topic of Pharmaceuticals in our waterways for the past week, and I’m starting to feel like this is the subject I would like to focus on for my internship, outside of my normal duties of course.

Here’s the background…

If you were to open up your medicine cabinet back home, there would be a chance that you would find some sort of expired, or perhaps unused, medicine. The next thought, hopefully at least, would be “I should get rid of this stuff”, which then begs the question, “how do I get rid of this stuff”. In the past the government has recommended that you simply flush the medicine down the drain. Well surprise, surprise we are now starting to find that some of our watersheds and, consequently, our drinking water is starting to have some pharmaceuticals present in it. An AP Press study found that 41 million Americans are drinking tap water contaminated with a whole range of drugs in it, drugs found in these water ways treat everything from high blood pressure and cholesterol to some mental health syndromes.

So why should we care…

Well people are drinking compounds that are designed to initiate and change the ways our bodies work. On top of this, it is currently unknown how these drugs behave when combined together. It is currently not known how or if these compounds effect the human body. Recently, however, it is being noticed that some male fish are starting to lay eggs. These intersex fish are commonly thought to be interacting with the huge amounts of estrogen that we are flushing down the drains. These fish are thought of as a warning sign of the possibility of drugs in our water ways, and possible consequences of being exposed to them over large periods of time.

So what am I supposed to do with these damn drugs???

Well that’s the thing…if you just leave them in your medicine cabinet, there’s a chance that a child or pet might get into them and overdose. This happens more often than thought and in fact my cousin poisoned herself on pills when she was younger. Also some teenagers, who do the darnedest things, think it’s really cool to get high off of prescription drugs. Apparently, it’s thought that these medicines can’t hurt you, because they’re medicine right? We’ve already discussed what happens if you put the drugs down the drain: The water treatment plants can’t take the drugs out of the water and so the drugs are put into the rivers with the “treated” water. Eventually, a town downstream might use this water for tap water. If you think about putting the pills in the garbage, you face the same issues with kids, pets and teenagers. Also these pills go to the dump, where they can dissolve into leachate (or dump juice as I like to call it) which either 1) drains into the ground water or 2) gets taken to a water treatment facility…where the inability of scrubbing the pharmaceuticals out still persists.

Apparently I’m writing a paper now…(strong coffee)

The last option would be to take it to the local law enforcement office. Because everybody loves cops right? Now, intuitively one would think “I’ll just take it back where I got it…the Pharmacy”, but this is barely an option. I found out through my Aunt (who owns an independent pharmacy) that there is a program in which people can take their medications to the pharmacist who dispenses these pills into a large brown box and mail it back to a company (Sharps inc.) that incinerates the drugs in a way that is perfect for the environment AND legal. However, only some small independent pharmacies are getting into this program. Yesterday, I approached the independent here in Corvallis about this program, and was told that the Oregon board of Pharmacy didn’t allow them to take drugs back in any way. When I called the Oregon Board of Pharmacy compliance board, I was forwarded to rule 855-041-0080 part 2c, which allows this environment take-back program to be completely legal in Oregon, and that Pharmacist can take your drugs (non controlled) back if they are intentioned to destroy the drugs.

In short, it seems that this entire project will be simply educating people…even some pharmacists.

I don’t know where to go with this project, it seems extremely wide ranging and there are many problems with the current system (I haven’t even discussed the issues I have with the federal regulations on drug disposal).  My adviser  offered the idea that I start looking for grants to create some community based drug take-back program and, that I consider writing an undergraduate thesis on this subject…  I didn’t even know there were undergraduate thesis’. I’ve been put into contact with Rob Emanuel who seems to have started working of a similar project up in Tillamook and Clatsop county. And at this point I’m looking for anyone to give me some direction with the subject.

Anyways…that’s what I’ve been doing this week…If any ideas come to you please comment and give me some Ideas!

Have a GREAT 4th of July Weekent

Josh Scacco

Science is hard work!

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Starting Monday of last week, I was officially done with all of the safety training and background reading and began the real work for my internship.  As an undergrad working in the labs at school, the logistics of the experiments that I do are for the most part already figured out for me, with this project at the EPA that is definitely not the case.  Monday was the first test run that I was a part of.  I went into work at about 10:00am and helped Caitlin make the artificial sea water for the chambers by adding nitrate, ammonium, and potassium compounds to five gallon jugs of water.  The concentrations of these compounds are our variables that we expect to change over the course of our experiment, so we must take samples before and after we run the experiment to be analyzed for changes.  Then we added the water solution to five 10-gallon cubitainers to be placed out into the marsh.  After lunch we went out to the marsh right outside the EPA building and began our long day in the field.  We had to add the chambers to the bases that we put out the Friday before and then we attached the cubitainers to the chambers with a long hose.  The way this experiment works is that you place the cubitainers below the chambers in the channel bed and as the tide rises, the pressure of the water forces the water into the chambers though the hose and then back out again as the tide falls.  I find it funny the easiest part of this whole process is running the experiment itself because after we got all of the cubitainers set up, we sat back and relaxed on the marsh for a few hours while only taking samples and dissolved oxygen measurements every 40 minutes.  After the experiment was done at about 8:00pm we had to take everything down and run about 30 samples in the spectrophotometer called the ISUS to test for nitrate content.  I didn’t get home until about 11:00pm.  All in all, the purpose of this experiment was to find out why our the nutrient levels that we were getting from the ISUS were lower than the nutrient levels that we were getting back from the lab at UC Santa Barbara.  We found out that the reason that we were getting a discrepancy was because we weren’t filtering our samples!  Something as simple as that could mess everything up.

This was my first taste of real science!  There are so many statistical, logistical, and experimental problems to work out.  For this experiment some of the issues that can make things difficult are: a lack of high enough tides, difficulties getting to a particular marsh, a lack of channels to put cubitainers in, a lack of marsh sites that have all of the habitats that we are looking for, inaccessibility to desirable sites because of private land ownership, problems running the experiment, slight mistakes in chamber building, inadequate sites to represent the whole estuary system, etc, etc.

Here’s a video of the different zones in the salt marsh: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/56/Salt_pannes_and_pools_high_and_low_tide.gif/340px-Salt_pannes_and_pools_high_and_low_tide.gif

The biggest aspect of working on this project is that everything here revolves around the tides.  So, if the high tide is not until late, we are out late, if the high tide is really early, we are out really early.  Because of this, I’ve spent several late nights this past week scouting potential sites up and down the estuary at high tide to make sure that they low marsh that we are trying to sample is flooding at high tide.  A lot of the time, the tides are not high enough to flood the low marsh, so when they are we must act fast to run our experiments on those days.

After running that first test, I realized that I need to start doing pushups to get stronger.  I am not particularly weak, but at only 100lbs lifting 20 gallon water jugs and carrying 10 gallon cubitainers in and out of the marsh requires a lot of energy.  I’m hoping that by the end of the summer I’ll be much more in shape.

Picture of the estuary that I took as we were scouting for sites.

This week, we will continue preparing for our next experiment which will begin around the 13th of July.  We are switching to “bladders” instead of cubitainers so we need to figure out which bladder will work the best.  We have to finalize the sites that we are going to go to for our experiment.  We also need to buy more supplies and continue to figure out the logistics to make this experiment as successful as it can be.  I’m hoping that this week will be slower (relatively) than last week. Three late nights a week are no fun, but I know I have more coming up.  I’m excited though because I get to do science and field work all day which is a lot of fun and is definitely my passion.

Check out my personal blog to see what I’m up to outside of work! Sara Duncan

Interview Time!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHOWDAAAA

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

Gathering Content: Week 2

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Hello all! I hope everyone is enjoying their time so far! Before I begin recounting the past week’s events, I would like to introduce myself briefly (I forgot to give a short bio in the last blog post I did).

 

Brief Bio

So, my name is Shealyn Friedrich and I will be a senior next year at Willamette University (a small liberal arts college about 45 minutes from here in Salem, OR) – shout outs to Lauren Dimock! I will spend next year finishing up my Biology major (I have a minor in Spanish), and thesis-ing! I am looking to go into science education, and the outreach aspect of the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholars Program is perhaps what drew me in the most. I am looking into doing a year long masters program after undergrad to receive my Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT), after which point I hope to teach higher level high school biology. I am very excited about this internship with Sea Grant because, although I have had a broad background in biology, I have not yet had an opportunity to get a taste of the marine sciences specifically. This should be a great time, and I’m excited to be contributing to scientific outreach while exploring some of my own untapped interests! On my free time, I enjoy running, writing, and painting among other things.

Last Week’s Progress

This past week I was really able to wrap my head around my project. I feel pretty settled now, and I have a plan as to where I am going with this! My top priority for the website is going to be research feature stories – at least for starters. We want to draw people into this site, and we want to target both policy makers as well as prospective students! I spent the beginning of this week poking around for information on all of the institutes and departments represented in the marine council. From the information I gathered, I made a rather extensive list of potential feature stories. After meeting with Jenna (my mentor), we came to the conclusion that the list would need to be refined. We also agreed that we should schedule a meeting with communications.

I refined my list down to about 5 overarching feature stories, 5 feature stories on graduate students, and 2 features on undergrads (there is so much going on in the marine sciences at OSU!). On Friday, Jenna and I met with Dave Barner and Nick Houtman among others to discuss the website. We created a plan for what the website should look like, and we discussed content as well. According to Dave and Nick, Terra magazine (as well as several other sites) have pre-existing feature stories that we agreed I should use before writing from scratch. After I gather all of the relevant material and begin designing the website, then I will be able to go back and conduct interviews to write pieces that may fill in any gaps that we find. I also had a meeting with Pat Kight (Oregon Sea Grant web communications) to discuss existing resources.

 

This Week’s Plan

Everyone has been so helpful in helping me get on track with this project – I am so grateful! Today I plan to spend some time collecting pre-existing stories and creating a list of features that can be pulled from other sources for the website.  I will also try and create a new template for the website design that adheres to some of the things we discussed in our meeting with Dave and Nick. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I will be taking an all day Drupal training course. Drupal is the web content management system that I will be using to create the website! I anticipate that Friday will consist of picking up where I left off today (Monday)!

 

Hope everyone has a very happy week! Good luck all! Enjoy Oregon!

 

 

 

“What Doesn’t Sea Grant Do”

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Hello all!

My name is Josh and I, along with Amy, am a PROMISE Intern working with Oregon Sea Grant Extension here in Corvallis for the summer. A quick wrap up about me: I’m a Senior at OSU in Pre-Prarmacy with a minor in Chemistry, I most recently was the Co-Director of a student group on campus, and I’m going into OSU’s Team Liberation program at the end of the summer! I also love being an educator to all ages, and I’ve participated as a councilor at a local Outdoor school camp for sixth graders for the last five years. Okay! Now that that’s over and done with I guess I can get started on talking about my adventures with Sea Grant so far.

My first day was last Monday, which was entirely focused on PROMISE activities. We started off getting to know each other, this is where I met my fellow Sea Grant Intern Amy. Than we had a delicious lunch with our Advisers. Amy and I have three advisers: Megan Kleibacker, Samuel Chan, and Tania Siemens. During our first week, Megan was the only one in the office so, while I’ve met both Sam and Tania briefly, I’ve yet to have any extended conversation with them. After this was done, we were instructed to go the Challenge Course…I didn’t even know OSU had a challenge course. So imagine my surprise when I see a bunch of poles and guide wires 35 feet up in the air! After spending a good half hour (or at least it felt that long) getting strapped into our harnesses. We spent the next three hours climbing, crossing, and jumping around the course. Overall, it was a fun day and a great way to get introduced to the PROMISE program.

 

Tuesday was a simple introductory to the office setting, getting the equipment to run, learning to figure out the resources we have at our disposal etc. All this time I was still trying to figure out all that Sea Grant does. It all seemed a little intimidating to be honest. On Wednesday, however, I got to have a great experience that helped put Sea Grant into focus for me. Amy and I joined Jen, a professional Intern in the office, in going to a conference up in Vancouver, Washington. The conference focused on AIS (aquatic invasive species) for the Columbia River Basin. States that had representatives included Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho. Megan and Sam had assured me that it would be okay if I got  overwhelmed, they just wanted me to go to soak up the information, not necessarily understand it. At first, this was the case, but after a representative of Idaho, Amy Ferriter, spoke it all seemed to snap into place and make sense. I walked away from that conference with a much greater understanding of what Sea Grant does, even though Aquatic Invasive Species is only one of the many projects that Sea Grant is involved in.

Our biggest project right now is easily the DaVinci Days booth. DaVinci Days is the local art and science festival in Corvallis, so things tend to get equally colorful and nerdy, so I’m always a fan! Since this year marks the 40th anniversary of Sea Grant, Amy and I have twice as much space to work with than past interns. This has been a great activity to work on so far, because it allows me do a lot more research on the difference aspects of Sea Grant. I’ve been discovering more and more that Sea Grant is involved in a lot more than I previously thought. From educating the public on boater safety to doing research on tsunamis. Lately, instead of asking myself, “What does Sea Grant do” I’m asking myself, “What doesn’t Sea Grant do”.

As I try and find answers to this question, I get more excited to be working with such a great organization for the summer, and I can’t wait for all of the adventures and activities in store for me!!!

 

Learning! |wk.2|

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Hello…

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

Working at ODFW…

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

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

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

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

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

Living in Oregon…

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

Lincoln City Kite Festival

Saving Oysters in Oregon – week 2

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

Sea kayaking. Is hard.

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

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

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