In an Ocean Week speech on Capitol Hill in 2009, Jane Lubchenco laid out the goals: “Americans want clean beaches, healthy seafood, good jobs, abundant wildlife, stable fisheries and vibrant coastal communities … . This collection of services depends on healthy, productive and resilient ocean and coastal ecosystems.”
On a typical low-visibility-day out among Oregon’s rocky reefs, scuba divers float in a murky, monochromatic world. Sunlight filtering through the algae-rich brine of near-shore waters casts a green patina on everything.
Fish-eating seabirds like the common murre — which nest in the rocky intertidal zones along the coast — can give scientists clues to the status of native finfish by how they behave.
The marine reserve off Cape Perpetua served as a laboratory for Oregon college students in April 2014.
As fishermen, scientists and coastal communities spar over Oregon’s system of marine reserves, OSU researchers and their partners are developing the science. One of their first testing grounds is Port Orford’s Redfish Rocks.
Marine ecologists at Oregon State University have shown for the first time that tiny fish larvae can drift with ocean currents and “re-seed” fish stocks significant distances away – more than 100 miles in a new study from Hawaii.