Saving Seafood

“Thar she blows!” OSU Researchers study whale/fishing gear incursions

September 30, 2025 — The following transcript was generated using automated transcription software for the accessibility and convenience of our audience. While we strive for accuracy, the automated process may introduce errors, omissions, or misinterpretations. This transcript is intended as a helpful companion to the original audio and should not be considered a verbatim record. For the most accurate representation, please refer to the audio recording.
 
MICHAEL DUNNE: I’m Michael Dunne. I count myself lucky to live in Oregon, and a big reason for that is easy access to the Oregon coast. Recently, I was even more fortunate to be invited onto the Pacific storm OS using a research vessel to join with researchers and local high school students to venture out miles off the Oregon coast in search of whales. The scientists on board are photographing whales to learn more about their habitat and record scarring from entanglements with fishing gear. The students are part of the OSU Sea Grant program to teach kids about amazing careers in STEM fields. And I was there to record our adventure. Bring it back to you. It was a rough day, and a few of us, including yours truly, got a little green around the gills, but it was an amazing journey from the deck of Oregon State University’s research ship the Pacific storm. I was invited to join both marine mammal researchers and a group of students to venture out beyond the breakers and search for whales that inhabit the waters far off of Newport. Our destination was about 15 miles off the coast, to an area known by the scientists and crew as a good habitat for our humpback whales. The researchers are interested in seeing how the habitat is conducive to these giants, as well as photographing them to determine how they might be scarred by fishing gear and other man-made obstacles. Lindsay Wickham, a post-doctoral scholar at OSU, explains why they’re studying entanglements and why that’s important. Talk about your specific area of study.

LINDSAY WICKMAN: So, I’m involved in a couple of projects researching the issue of large whale entanglement on the Oregon coast. So one of those projects is Opal. It stands for overlap predictions about large whales. And in that one, we are trying to understand where the whales are and create models to predict where these large whale species are. So that’s fin whales, humpback whales and blue whales, and then overlapping those predictions with fishery effort so that we can better understand where the risky areas for potential entanglement in Oregon are and when, so that we can prevent entanglements from happening. And then the other project I’m working on is called slate, and that one stands for scar based long term assessments on trends and entanglement. And in that one, we’re taking photographs of humpback whales and then looking at those photos for evidence of scarring that could be caused by temporary entanglement in fishing gear. And that’s to get a better idea of the actual prevalence of entanglement in Oregon and how that’s changing over time, since we know our probability of actually seeing an entangled whale was so low, we can get a better idea of the scope of it by looking at photographic evidence.

MICHAEL DUNNE: What is your research suggesting thus far regarding the problem of whales off the Oregon Coast getting entangled in fishing nets and other types of gear. Do you have a generalized hypothesis of how, how big of a problem it is, and its impact on our both our permanent and visiting whales?

LINDSAY WICKMAN: It’s really tricky. So there has been an increasing trend and reported confirmed entanglements over time. So that’s when we see a whale with gear on it. And from the photographic work that we’ve been doing on entanglement scars, the number of whales that are getting entangled at some point in their life is more, a lot more than what we’re seeing from these confirmed entanglements. But what’s really tricky is we’re not exactly sure where they’re getting entangled when they get entangled during their life, and that’s where we are gathering all this additional evidence around the overlay. The risk of exposure to fishery gear in Oregon is, I think, going to help a lot with that question.

MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, do you think that through your research, you and other scientists as well as the fishing community, do you think that it will lead to solutions to reduce the conflict, and is it a simple matter of, you know, trying to remove gear from where whales are, or could there be other solutions so that the fishing community can still do what they need to do, but also can reduce the conflicts between whales and fishing gear?

Read the full article at KLCC

OSU chosen to lead NOAA institute for marine research

June 9, 2021 — Oregon State University said Tuesday it has been selected to host a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration institute focused on collaborative study of the rapidly changing ocean and expanded demands on its use.

The Cooperative Institute for Marine Ecosystem and Resources Studies, or CIMERS, will focus on four research themes: conservation, protection and restoration of marine resources; marine ecosystems; ocean acoustics; and ocean, coastal and seafloor processes.

The institute will be eligible for up to $37 million in funding over the next five years, with potential for renewal for five more years.

“NOAA’s significant support of this collaborative marine institute underscores Oregon State University’s longstanding contributions in leadership, research and teaching to protect and enhance our oceans,” said OSU Interim President Becky Johnson. “We must accelerate that work due to the extraordinary pressures and changes taking place in our oceans and climate. OSU’s collaborative model of engaging many colleges, academic disciplines and external partners is well-suited to address these issues.”

NOAA supports 20 cooperative institutes in 28 states and the District of Columbia, providing funding to extend basic and applied research beyond the federal agency’s capacity. The institutes also serve as a training ground for future NOAA employees through undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral education programs that align with NOAA’s mission.

Read the full story at KTVZ

OSU researcher leads NOAA-funded project to study West Coast response to ocean acidification

March 4, 2021 — The following was released by Oregon State University:

An Oregon State University researcher is part of a new federally supported project investigating how communities along the West Coast are adapting to ocean acidification, with the goal of determining what they need to be more resilient.

Ana K. Spalding, an assistant professor of marine and coastal policy in OSU’s College of Liberal Arts, is leading a team looking into how shellfish industry participants in several towns along the Oregon and California coasts are responding to ocean acidification and where gaps in policy or resources have left them vulnerable.

The $1 million, three-year interdisciplinary project is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through its Ocean Acidification Program. At OSU, Spalding is working with Erika Wolters, assistant professor of public policy, and Master of Public Policy students Victoria Moreno, Emily Griffith and Ryan Hasert.

“The goal of this project is to better align policy responses with the immediate and very local needs of shellfish-reliant communities,” Spalding said. “This is both understanding that vulnerability and proactively thinking, ‘What can we do to respond to better support members of the shellfish industry and their needs?’”

Ocean acidification and its impact on shellfish first became a major concern for West Coast farmers after a 2007 mass oyster larvae die-off at the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts Bay, Oregon. OSU scientists definitively linked that die-off to increased carbon dioxide in the water in a 2012 study.

Read the full release here

2020 SPW Registration Now Available

October 9, 2020 — The following was released by Oregon State University:

Agenda

  • Welcome
  • Oregon Regulatory Updates
    • Tiffany Yelton-Bram, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Tim McFetridge, Water Quality Engineer, Ranei Nomura, Western Region Department of Environmental Quality
  • Alaska Regulatory Updates
    • Jackie Ebert, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation
  •  EPA
    • Sally Goodman, Environmental Protection Agency
  • Washington and BC Regulatory Updates
    • Alan Ismond, P. Eng, Aqua Terra Consultants
    • Steven Hammer, P. Eng, SLR Consulting
  • Closing remarks

Register Here

Find out more

As the world’s population grows, researchers say the ocean and seafood have big roles to play

August 27, 2020 — Seafood production could see as much as a 75 percent leap over the next three decades if certain policy reforms and technological improvements are put in place, according to research conducted by Oregon State University (OSU) in collaboration with a bevy of international scientists.

By 2050, the earth’s human population is expected to reach 9.8 billion, an increase of two billion people over the current global tally. Researchers, who published their latest findings in Nature, believe that seafood has the potential to feed the growing world over the next 30 years sustainably – if certain conditions are applied.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Oceans should have a place in climate ‘green new deal’ policies, scientists suggest

May 6, 2020 — The world’s oceans play a critical role in climate regulation, mitigation and adaptation and should be integrated into comprehensive “green new deal” proposals being promoted by elected officials and agency policymakers, a group of ocean scientists suggests in a new paper.

“The ‘green new deal’ has been the headline, but very few have been talking about the oceans in those conversations,” said Steven Dundas, an environmental and resource economist in Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station in Newport, Oregon.

“We think it’s important to add a touch of ocean blue to this conversation because the oceans play an important role in efforts to mitigate effects of climate change,” he said. “Our proposed ‘teal deal’ is an integrated approach that is more likely to generate cost-effective and equitable solutions to this global threat.”

Dundas is one of three senior authors of the paper, which was published recently by the journal Conservation Letters. The other senior authors are Arielle Levine and Rebecca Lewison of San Diego State University. Additional authors include OSU’s Angee Doerr, Ana Spalding and Will White.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Study finds tuna fishermen who fish along ocean fronts can significantly boost revenue

February 21, 2018 — CORVALLIS, Ore. – Savvy Northwest anglers have long known that when patches of warm Pacific Ocean water drift closer to shore each summer, it’s time to chase after the feisty and tasty albacore tuna.

Now a new study confirms that tuna are more likely to be found in regions of the California Current System with certain oceanographic conditions – and that commercial fishermen who work those areas more frequently bring in up to three times the revenue of other tuna anglers.

Results of the study, which was supported by the National Science Foundation and led by Oregon State University, were published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

These oceanographic conditions are more complex than simply being warmer temperatures, said James Watson, an OSU marine ecologist and lead author on the study. Their technical name is Lagrangian Coherent Structures, though scientists often refer to them as “the skeletons of the sea.”

“Essentially they are physical ocean fronts where surface waters converge,” Watson said. “If you toss two tennis balls in the water and they converge quickly, it is considered a Lagrangian Coherent Structure, or LCS.”

“What we’ve found is that the stronger the convergence, the more likely it is to attract certain things, beginning with the aggregation of phytoplankton, which in turn attracts larger organisms like tuna – and, ultimately, tuna fishermen.”

The researchers sought to discover whether anglers were utilizing these LCSs and if so, whether it had an economic impact. They compiled data from a vessel monitoring system on the location of more than 1,000 fishing vessels every hour in the U.S. California Current Large Marine Ecosystem for a four-year period – a total of more than 340,000 trips. They then collected fisheries catch and price data.

Read the full story at KVAL