Breaking Waves

The following publications and DVD are available online at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/newpubs.html

This is Oregon Sea Grant

Oregon’s Coastal Marine Recreational Fishing Community:….

Public Outreach and Behavior Change:….

Responses to the West Coast Groundfish Disaster:….

Salmon and Estuaries:….

Tsunami Awareness for Fishermen and Mariners

Oregon Sea Grant Program Report 2007:…. [DVD and booklet]

Oregon Sea Grant is pleased to announce the launch of a new series of audio podcasts, Communicating Climate Change. The podcasts will feature in-depth conversations with prominent social scientists whose work informs public communications about science. Joe Cone is the producer. The first conversation is with Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change:

http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/blogs/communicatingclimate/

Given the importance of appropriate actions in response to climate change, successful communication with various audiences is vital and deserves to be informed by the best communication research. These podcasts will present some of that research through informal conversations with the researchers themselves. Complete text transcripts of the conversations will also be online.

Links on the web site guide listeners to subscribe to the podcasts via RSS, iTunes, or even email.

Residents of coastal Oregon, Washington and California have until Jan. 31 to take part in a survey designed to identify ocean and coastal research and information priorities for  the region.

The survey, jointly sponsored by Sea Grant programs in the three states, is part of a federally funded effort intended to:

• Ensure the region’s unique resource management challenges are better understood and represented at the federal level
• Help the region progress toward effective, ecosystem-based management
• Identify the common needs of west coast communities of place and interest to encourage further region-wide collaboration on critical ocean and coastal issues

The project, supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and endorsed by the governors of all three states, is a response to recent national recommendations calling for a regional approach to research planning.

Survey responses will be combined with comments received during a series of community meetings held up and down the West Coast in 2007, and will be incorporated into a final report to be delivered to NOAA in 2008.

The survey, along with information about the planning process and collected comments from community meetings, can be accessed here.  Although three versions - one for each state - are provided, the questions are identical and all responses will be compiled for the final report. Respondents whose interests overlap state boundaries need only respond to one survey.

People come to Oregon from all over the United States each year to learn about - and try to spot - the gray whales that migrate past our coast. Now’s your chance to join the host of volunteers who take up stations at prime whale-watching spots each winter and spring to teach people about these majestic marine mammals.

Oregon Sea Grant, the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center and Oregon State Parks and Recreation team up Nov. 17-18 to offer training for volunteers in the Winter Whale Watch Week “Whale Spoken Here” program. Dr. Bruce Mate, OSU marine mammal specialist, and John Calambokidis, research biologist and co-founder of Cascadia Research, will lead the Newport training.

Pre-registration is required; sign up through Whale Spoken Here, the Oregon State Parks & Recreation whale-watching site.

This year’s Winter Whale Watch Week is Dec. 26-Jan. 1.

(Additional training will be offered in January and February for those interested in volunteering for the Spring Whale Watch Week, March 22-29, 2008).

(photo of surf scoters and breeching gray whale courtesy of the Oregon State Parks Whale Watching Center, Depoe Bay)

What does it cost to charter a Russian ice-breaker? How do you keep camera batteries charged in frigid antarctic temperatures?

Portland-area science buffs can learn the answers to these and other questions on Nov. 26, when OMSI’s Science Pub hosts Bill Hanshumaker, Sea Grant Extension’s public marine educator at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center.

Hanshumaker will present an informal talk, with slides, about his experiences on Antarctic research expeditions in 2005 and 2006. As part of the “Sounds from the Southern Ocean” research team, Hanshumaker took part in a two-phased project to observe sounds - and sights - of the seafloor in the Antarctic Bransfield Strait and Drake Passage in an effort to learn more about tectonic and volcanic activity at the bottom of the world. He posted same-day reports of the adventure on his blog, Sounds From the Southern Ocean.

OMSI’s Science Pub is an informal get-together where you can interact with experts and where there’s no such thing as a silly question. No scientific background is required - just curiosity, a sense of humor, and an appetite for food, drinks, and knowledge. While the Science Pub is intended for adults, minors are welcomed at Bridgeport until 10 p.m. No reservations required (but the event has been drawing big crowds, so get there early!)
What: OMSI Science Pub, Sounds from the Southern Ocean
When: Monday, Nov. 26, 7 p.m.
Where: bridgeport brewpub + bakery, 1313 N.W. Marshall, Portland, OR
More information

Sea Grant programs in Oregon and Maine are collaborating on a two-year effort to help the nation’s coastal communities understand and prepare for climate change.

The project is supported by a $290,000 grant is from NOAA’s Sectoral Applications Research Program .

Leading the project is Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant and head of its communications team. The project aims to develop and test a model of public outreach about climate change that may ultimately be used by Sea Grant programs in all US coastal and Great Lakes states.

 Read more …

Oregon Sea Grant plans to support as many as four undergraduate students this year in conducting research related to ocean or coastal science, resources or public affairs, starting winter term of the 2007-2008 academic year.

Each fellowship will provide a resident tuition waiver (or partial tuition support for non-Oregon residents), a per-term stipend,  and modest travel and supply expenses, totalling a maximum of $9,000 per student for the academic year.   Fellows will be expected to work 10 hours/week on their research projects during winter and spring terms and 20 hours/week during the summer.  The deadline for applications is Oct 31, 2007.

More information is available here.

Oregon Sea Grant is looking for a graduate student to assist the Oregon Coastal Caucus in enhancing legislative knowledge and planning related to the Oregon coast and its communities.

Candidates for this position should possess a strong interest in coastal and marine public policy, effective communication skills, the ability to be flexible, and a desire to learn about the Oregon legislative process. The intern will be expected to be objective on issues, maintain a non-partisan role, and be respectful of the legislators’ varied opinions.

This internship is currently available from Sept. 24 – Dec. 21, 2007. There is a high likelihood that the internship will be extended through the 2008 Special Session and beyond, contingent upon funding.

Read more and learn how to apply.

The application deadline is Sept. 26, 2007

CORVALLIS, Ore. (Sept. 12, 2007)- An invasion of American beach grass is under way along the Oregon coast, threatening to change dune ecology and reduce the ability of dunes to protect roads, property and towns from coastal storms.

Sea Grant-funded scientists at Oregon State University have documented a slow but steady takeover by this beach grass, an invasive species. They found that protective “foredunes” covered by the new grass species are only about half as high as those created by the European species of grass that were formerly dominant.

(Read more …)

Oregon Sea Grant director Dr. Robert E. Malouf has announced he will retire Feb. 1 after 16 years leading the marine research, outreach, and education program based at Oregon State University (OSU).

Oregon Sea Grant is the largest of OSU’s institutes and programs. Malouf has had overall responsibility for all of Sea Grant’s activities, including its competitive grants, the Visitor Center of the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center, and very active programs in communication, education and extension. Oregon Sea Grant employs more than 40 people on a budget that exceeds $5 million in state and federal funds annually.

Under Malouf’s leadership, Oregon Sea Grant has been consistently ranked as one of the very best Sea Grant programs in the nation in formal reviews. The last review (in 2005) put it simply: “Dr. Malouf has set a high standard for this program, and it has been met.”

The national review panel further cited the program as demonstrating several national “best management practices,” including strategic planning, decision-making, and program integration, all articulated and developed by Malouf.

The national recruitment and selection process for Malouf’s successor has recently begun. It is chaired by the OSU Associate Vice President for Research, Rich Holdren.

A native of Montana, Malouf’s affiliation with Oregon Sea Grant started in the program’s first year, 1968, when he received support as a new OSU master’s student in Fisheries. After earning his Ph.D. in Fisheries from OSU he joined the faculty of the Marine Sciences Research Center of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. While there from 1977 to 1991 he taught courses in marine fisheries, shellfisheries, and aquaculture. In 1987 he was named director of the New York Sea Grant Institute; he held that position until he succeeded Oregon Sea Grant’s original director, William Wick, on Wick’s retirement in 1991.

For more than 10 years Malouf served as a member of Oregon’s Ocean Policy Advisory Council and chaired the Council’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee. He has had numerous leadership positions with other state and national organizations.