Marine Reserves News: Kicking Off Field Season, Updates, New Staff

A Deeper Dive

Field Season Kickoff 

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As winter storms transition to spring rains, underwater visibility typically increases and research field season kicks into high gear. The ecological research team conducts multiple studies at Oregon’s 5 marine reserves and 8 comparison areas along the Oregon coast – and 2019 is already jam packed.

This year, hook and line surveys will be at Cape Falcon and Redfish Rocks. Last year, the team sampled a combined total of over 2,000 fish during our surveys at Cascade Head and Cape Perpetua (read our FishOn! newsletter to learn more).

Like last year, 2019 will also include oceanography data collection, with sensors going out at Otter Rock and Redfish Rocks in April and May. This year will be our first year gathering oceanographic data from Cape Falcon and its comparison area. Our oceanographic efforts will compliment ongoing data collection led by Oregon State University at Cape Perpetua.

We’ll also be conducting SCUBA , video lander, and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) surveys this year while our research collaborators will be leading rocky intertidal and juvenile fish surveys. Plus, read more to find out about a new survey tool being piloted this year.

To see our full season schedule, click below. 

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Update: Cape Falcon Management Plan

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Community members from the Garibaldi region attend a workshop to help ODFW with development of Cape Falcon Management Plan. This was one of a series of workshops held along the North Coast this winter.

We’d like to thank everyone who has provided input as part of the development of the Cape Falcon Management Plan – we’ve had lots of participation. From the many North Coast residents who attended workshops this past fall, to one-on-one conversations that provided many innovative ideas – we appreciate all of the input. We also tested out a new tool to get feedback via online survey and had 54 people participate.

Currently, we are coalescing all the information received to date. We will have a draft of the Cape Falcon Management Plan out in late summer for public comment.

Click below to learn about how the input is being used 

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Welcome Aboard!

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Stephanie Fields will be joining our ecological research team at the end of April, and replacing Dr. Wolfe Wagman, who retired earlier this year. 

We’d like to introduce our new Ecological Research Assistant, Stephanie Fields. Stephanie is starting at the end of April and is taking over for Dr. Wolfe Wagman, who retired earlier this year. Stephanie will be supporting a variety of research efforts, analysis and writing. She received her master’s degree in Marine Resource Management at Oregon State University, where she investigated the impacts of dredged material disposal on seafloor communities near the Mouth of the Columbia River. For the past three years she’s been working at ODFW on projects using stereo video platforms to assess populations of Oregon Coast invertebrates and rockfish.

hook and line surveys


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