“The commercial Dungeness fishing fleet, which operates along the coast of Oregon, Washington and Northern California, is a vital economic commodity,” says OSU researcher Laurel Kincl, an expert in environmental and occupational health and safety in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.
A fly-fishing line arcs above a river. The hand-tied fly — chosen to match whichever aquatic insect has hatched that morning — settles on the water. In casting that line, a fly fisherman enters into the life of the river, intuitively, intellectually, intimately.
The implications for the endangered blue whale (and, by extension, other marine predators) are clear. If they’re disturbed during intense, deep-water feeding, it could have consequences for their fitness, overall health and reproductive viability over time.
The 2010 Academy Award-winning movie The Cove — which documented dolphin slaughter in Japan — included scenes of OSU researcher Scott Baker conducting DNA analysis covertly in his hotel room.
Floating in the seas are zillions of microscopic creatures called “protists,” a catchall term for a group of algae-eating organisms that are neither animal, plant or fungus. As ubiquitous as they are, scientists don’t yet fully grasp their role in the marine carbon cycle, according to OSU researcher Stephen Giovannoni.
In May, the Endurance team recovered the rest of the components of the broken mooring. Over the summer, they will examine the evidence to pinpoint the cause of the failure. The buoy will be reconditioned and sent back to its post. It’s all part of the dance that oceanographers do to unlock the secrets of the sea.