Hello faithful readers! & sorry there has been nothing to read:( Life is a little insane right now- leaving for South Carolina tomorrow & still trying to finish a paper (of course!) for fish biology. This has been a great class, all of my classes this quarter were great- Oceanography is my favorite though! Learned tons in everything- now once I am back from SC I will turn around & go to Costa Rica for 2 months for REU! Okay too many exclamation points, but it is pretty darn exciting, expenses paid & a stipend in order to study microbiology of the tropical soil. Will I blog to keep you all posted? well, stranger things have happened...
love mel

Quarter update

Heavy classload this quarter- Oceanography, Forest Ecology, Fish Biology (thru Peninsula College not WWU) & my REU is focusing on GIS- but a complementary & enjoyable combination. Great professors & the coursework involves new work building nicely on old stuff. Forest Ecology class joined forces with the Natural History class last week to learn about conifers, ferns & mosses. I am getting better with my species ID (also for fish). Took a midterm today in fish biology- scary that its that time already! Went well although I had some confusion about some basic taxonomy that was a little disappointing- got a too focused on the details & lost the big picture of Phylum Chordata- good lesson tho (don't assume your remember everything form basic bio lesson :)...

Endangered Rivers Issues

Thought this was interesting in regards to the Pitt River dams & other issues


Canada's Endangered rivers '08

1. Upper Pitt River (proposed independent power project).

2. Flathead River, (proposed coal mine, coal-bed methane development).

2. Fraser River, (urbanization, sewage, pollution, industrial development).

4. Taku River (proposed mine, acid-mine drainage).

5. Peace River (proposed hydroelectric dam).

6. Headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers (proposed coal-bed methane development).

7. Kettle River (water extraction, proposed power project).

8. Coquitlam River (urbanization, excessive sedimentation).

9. Glacier/Howser creeks (proposed power project).

10. Coldwater River (water extraction).

11. Okanagan River (water extraction, channelization, urban encroachment, riparian habitat loss).

12. Salmon River (low flows, pine beetle, riverside habitat loss).

13. Little Campbell River (agricultural impacts, water-quality concerns).

From-

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=e438cec2-06d9-4562-8345-5dd401637a5e

I survived & the Pitt River

I found this lonely old post sitting in my drafts-

Hello everyone- I officially lived thru the second worst quarter of my academic career! & the morning warmed into a beautimous spring afternoon- for awhile anyway. Found myself with too many projects & not enough time & energy last quarter.

I have been listening to my CBC (Canadian Public Broadcasting) & the subject of interest today is the run-of-river (& without large reservoir) Pitt River hydroelectric proposal that sounds like just got shot down (maybe?). This would require moving the boundary of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park for a transmission line, or an amendement to the "Park Act". Sounds like 1,000 public members showed up at one meeting- largely in opposition. The place of hydroelectric dams in th interesting topic that has been on my mind lately. I wrote a paper about the Snake River dams last quarter & listened to some interesting talks at the Elwha Research Consortium meeting yesterday, including one discussing different current dam removal projects, controversial stuff but it seems that the tide of public opinion is shifting to question new dam projects & support dam removals.

Here's a link to the content of the Park Act (just cuz I was interested)-
http://www.qp.gov.bc.ca/statreg/stat/P/96344_01.htm#section7

So evidently I'm having an attitude problem of late. I try to thing of something to blog about & it just comes out negative, so I guess I'll just roll with it, like the rest of life. Team Nearshore just got back from the Pacific Estuarine Research Society Meeting. It was quite an experience. I thought I pretty much knew what I was in for as I have a long, long history with veterinary conferences but- as it turns out- it was kind of a whole different thing. The talks are only ~15 minutes long each & tend to be pretty specific in topic, like about a specific grad or other research project. So for someone of my little experience it was difficult to get oriented to the topics- I just found that I didn't know enough about eel grass or zooplankton etc to get as much out of it as someone who had a broader knowledge base in the marine world. I guess that is probably the same at vet conferences, much of the difference is probably the knowledge base that I already had through lots of experience & also from conferences. Veterinary conferences come in many shapes & sizes so it is not difficult to find topics that are aimed at audiences with different levels of experience. Hopefully I will find this to be more the case at the American Fisheries Society conference that we are leaving for tomorrow bright & early. I don't know about that tho- in reality what I know about fish could be probably be written on a 3x5- okay maybe not quite but you get the gist, my knowledge base isn't really any stronger.

I did meet some great people, 2 in particular made helpful comments on my project & poster. Someone by the last name of Emmett who does forage fish research along the coast & another gentleman who works for a private environmental consulting company had some great thoughts on the sediment work. Only one person seemed a little overly aggressive with her questioning.

Anyway it's all a great learning experience & I certainly know a lot more than I did last week. The best part was the dinner at the aquarium in Newport- I forget the name at the moment but it is a beautiful facility. I loved all the different rockfish & everything else. The hotel was also great, beautiful ocean view/ balcony- I ended up with a huge room to myself. It was sad to not be able to really get out to the beach- it was all go, go, go. If only I was an early riser & not feeling so thoroughly sleep deprived at the moment!

So thank you to Dwight, Karen, Anne & all the people who provided funding & support to get us to the conferences. I'm a little jealous of the snow teams conference plans- I have the feeling their group won't be quite as stressed out on their travels:)

Life has been filled with work involving paper & computers as of late. Team nearshore has not been seining much lately but our trip out to Pysht last week did result in the most fish that we have seen in awhile- lots of surf smelt again which I don't really understand as they have a winter spawning season & are not known to make annual migrations to the ocean- they may actually reside near the shoreline for their lives. I don't know what makes the huge apparently seasonal variation in numbers but it would be nice to know as I have to get up in front of people & talk about forage fish a couple different times over the next 2 or 3 weeks. I have been working on sediment size analysis using photos lately, although not as much this week with all the work on my presentation, which I am still working on now (well I am taking my break to update my blog as I have sort of lost track of it). I am discovering that we don't take enough pictures of the actual forage fish, I need more material! Especially for the poster form of my presentation.

Blair asked what my artwork attempt pic was of (hi again B :) It is the shoreline along the Elwha bluffs (at least that's what we call them), east of the Elwha river mouth, with the shoreline armoring, I am not sure what that metal piece is actually called. I am sure that is adding some nice metals to the water, although over a very long time, obviously it is slowly breaking down. That is a crazy beach for collecting stuff, all kinds of metal & other stuff, I found the coolest fork there w/ the tines are curled & disfigured. People used to dump garbage right off the bluffs & there is also a landfill above that has been the source of some local contention as it is close to the shore.

Happy whatever holiday it is! Okay President's day, sorry, it's just filled with non-holiday contemplations for me.

Oh yeah, one more thing, welcome to new team member Sean. He is part of the Peninsula College fisheries program & a welcome addition to Team Nearshore. Especially as he knows my friends Ward & Sharon from Bremerton- small world! The new addition should help fill the empty spot in our hearts left from Jon's decision to head back to the paid working world. Congrats on the house tho Jon!

Post New Years

Here's my attempt at art from the Elwha!

Looks like an extra beautiful day on the peninsula today- the sun is shining & the days are getting longer! My poor blog has been suffering from the holiday break, my faithful readers hopefully aren't too distraught, some of you got to see me in person instead. We tried to make the holiday rounds but we ran out of time on our whirlwind tour.

Thanks for the comment from previous nearshore team member Eric, I passed the hello on to Jenna but still need to pass it on to Anne. We get to hear stories about all the previous nearshore team, so rest assured that you have not been forgotten! The Smokercraft is looking a little worse for wear (thanks to some of you more than others I hear) but still going strong.

I forgot to mention that during the flooding last month one of the trout we caught appeared at the Elwha appeared that it may have gone over the dams, his/ her poor face was smashed basically to the bone. See photo above.

I am off to snowshoe- Hasta leugo!

The week on the nearshore & HI BLAIR

Let's just start out with HI BLAIR!!!!!!!!!! I was trying to come up with something really clever & exciting to say, as I have recently discovered that my blog actually has some disappointed readers & I have also just discovered that I have some high competition as far as my fellow classmates blog entertainment value. It is a challenge to try to say anything substantial + not boring & today I am not up to the challenge. Preparing for finals etc has sapped my strength & my posture.

The weather has not been too cooperative as far as getting out on the "toy boat" in order to sample the more difficult to reach sites. Although it is pretty amazing how the sun seems to shine once we arrive- we like to call it fish karma :) We were not going to go out last week due to all the amazing flooding but it turned out to be a great week & I think everyone was glad to be sampling. I know I was happy to have a break from the computer!

The flooding seemed to have displaced fish & created turbidity that made for some good fishing! We caught a HUGE steelehead this week- 800mm, some sardines- for the first time- saddleback gunnells, a cutthroat, a bull trout & something I can't remember. I will fill in some life history at a later date....

Go Team Thanksgiving- wave breakin action:

Coho, more dams & Happy Thanksgiving!

I like the picture on the bottom as it shows the color well, but the other is set up nicer.

The end of the quarter quickly approaches & there remains much to do- the focus of the nearshore project has been shifted toward the sandlance work. Which means more walking & a drier me- I miss the seining with the close & personal fish viewing but it will be back soon enough.

On that note here are a couple of pictures of the Coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch­) that we caught (& released) early last week. I will use this forum to discuss some of the identifying features of a Coho salmon as I have some difficulty keeping it straight so far. This was the first large salmon that my team has caught (~77cm if memory serves), I believe it is the first large salmon the project has caught. It came from one of the side channels of the Elwha- some salmon do still spawn in the accessible part of the river (below the dams)- after some stormy weather here in PA.

So the Coho can be identified by several features including- white gums, a black tongue, few tail spots & spots on dorsal ~half of body & a wide tail base. They are also called silvers, among other names. This particular salmon is apparently a male- identified as such by its brilliant shade of red, females are less brightly colored. Mature males can also have a slightly humped back.

While researching on the health of Coho salmon stocks in the area I just came across an interesting article relating back to a previous discussion of the controversy surrounding dams in general. This article discusses the dams on the Snake River & the health of Orca populations check it out-

http://kitsapsun.com/news/2007/nov/20/orca-researchers-call-for-dam-removal/

I particularly enjoyed reading the comments of many readers. It takes all kinds. To give credit this link came from the Wild Salmon Center- http://wildsalmoncenter.org/ -
Signing off for now.

Hope everyone is having a great holiday, Peter & I had a great time sand lance sampling & eating a wonderful southwestern influenced dinner with Anne & family. No crab this year but it wasn’t really missed!
mel