A WINDOW TO THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

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Snagging spectacular videos of something on land isn’t hard – these days most cell phones can do it – but getting great underwater shots requires skill and expertise. The underwater shots in the above video didn’t come from a professional photographer. They came from biologists tasked with collecting data from a world we can’t easily access – beneath the surface of Oregon’s nearshore ocean.

One of the most robust sources of scientific fishery survey data comes from the long standing trawl surveys, still conducted today, by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. While this survey provides valuable information used to evaluate fish populations, it is unable to access shallow, nearshore rocky reefs. As a result, there are still many unknowns about nearshore fish populations and a huge need for more research – which is where video surveys are particularly valuable.

“Twenty years ago, we recognized the need to survey nearshore fish and habitats that were being missed by larger, traditional survey techniques. We used to do SCUBA surveys, but these became very challenging below depths of about 60 feet – and most of our rocky reefs occur deeper than that,” said Dave Fox, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Resource Assessment Program Manager. “This pushed us into trying new and different survey techniques, like video surveys.”

Video surveys are regularly being used by ODFW in the monitoring of Oregon’s marine reserves. Find out more about why and how we’re using video and what happens once the video footage is collected.

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