Drop-In Blog

By Jessica Jang

Like the previous post mentioned, I went on a 10 day sea voyage with NOAA's FRAMD (Fishery Resource Analysis and Monitoring Division) survey. This is annual survey that NOAA conducts during the summer to look at the fish community, by taking measurements of weights, lengths, sex of the fish, as well as selecting individuals to extract their otoliths. Otoliths are used to determine the age of bony fish. In many species rings are formed in the ear bones of the fishes. Biologists extract the ear bones from these fish and read them. There are three sets of ear bones, we use the largest set the sagittae. The information then will be used for fish stock assessments.

On my way to Portland, I found out that the fishing vessel I was assigned on wasn't in the water yet, so at the last minute, I reassigned to the fishing vessel, the Last Straw.

Here's a sign that was required on these fishing vessels involved in NOAA's groundfish surveys! Doesn't it look official?

So each fishing vessel had specific areas to sample, and when they found a suitable area to sample on their site, they set the net.

Sometimes the hauls would range from an hour to three hours to haul back depending on how deep the trawls were.

Here's a sample of what we would find in our deep trawls. Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) aka black cod, shortspine thornyheads (Sebastolobus alascanus) , longspine thornyheads (Sebastolobus altivelis), tanner crabs (Chionoecetes spp.) , and pacific grenadiers (Coryphaenoides acrolepis), were common in our deep sea trawls.

Sometimes we would get invertebrates intact in our trawls. Here we found two deep sea octopuses. I even saw one ink while it was trying to situate itself from the whole ordeal. Most of the deep sea fish didn't survive because of change of pressure and ended up mangled up from being in a tight enclosure, but it was pretty neat to see specimens of viperfish and hatchet fish in our deep trawls!

Other times, we would have hauls that overflowed the fish trough which left fish scattered on the deck floor. Days like that we had to scramble and sort the fish, because there were times when we wouldn't have a break when the next trawl would set. I had to learn how to be very efficient in my fish sorting abilities!

One day, I managed to find a glass float from the Japan tsunami that occurred 3 years ago. There's still lots of marine debris.

Sometimes our trawls would have 10 to 15 species that we had to extract otoliths from. In some species we had to extract quite a range of otoliths from two individuals to fifty!

The best of all was this surprise! We found a common murre egg from one of our deep trawls. It survived the ordeal from being snatched from the nest, and unscathed from our deep water trawl. I brought the egg home as a souvenir! Overall, I enjoyed my first long sea voyage on the FRAMD survey. I hope to have the opportunity to go back again to experience what life is like out at sea. There's always lots of surprises!

By Catarina Pien

Two weeks ago, my fellow labmate Jessica Jang and I headed to Newport, Oregon to learn how to survive the high seas in preparation for some trawls in which we will be participating later on this year. The FRAMD trawls (Fishery Resource Analysis and Monitoring Divison), associated with NOAA Fisheries, survey groundfish along the Western US coast, collecting age (using otoliths), sex, and length information on 90 groundfish species, as well as more limited information on other species collected in trawls, and more detailed information for scientists conducting special projects. Students in our lab (Pacific Shark Research Center) have, in the past, gathered specimens and data from these trawls for their thesis projects, and both Jessica and I are hoping to collect specimens for our own theses.

We arrived in Portland, and first made a pitstop to obtain some good food and the famed Voodoo Donuts. At the time, I didn't realize I would be eating donuts nonstop for the next 4 days. We then drove to Newport, only getting lost a few times...

The next day, we started off the day with some extreme videos of ships crashing and sinking, then had some lectures about safety, which emphasized the main objective of the course: develop the will to survive! Being prepared for the situation, being able to stay calm and respond efficiently to any circumstances that might arise, and knowing when to abandon ship would strongly enhance our chance of survival.

Next, we went outside, where the Coast Guard taught us about the balance and period of a ship's roll, and then showed us how to pump water out of a boat in the case of a flood. We took turns in their special training trailer, which was filled with leaky pipes and crevices that would begin spouting water at any given moment. I was Captain of my boat, and gave the Mayday! call to the Coast Guard while communicating with my crew members, whose job it was to plug the leaks with rubber wrapping, pieces of neoprene, and variably-shaped wooden wedges.

Later that day, we took our only test - unwrap and don our immersion (or survival, or gumby) suits within 60-seconds, which required multiple rounds of practice. The hardest part was doing anything that required fine motor skills (like zipping up the suit) with your fingers in a giant inflexible glove/ mitten. Some of us also tried the 60-s test in darkness, which was a whole other challenge. Although I wasn't the suit's biggest fan during the training, I came to appreciate it when we entered the water in our suits the next day (really toasty and kept me dry!), and understood how important it would be in the case of an actual sea emergency.

Later in the day we put out some fires (set on a grill), learning to work in a team and stay low to the ground, and tested some expired signal flares, one of which lit up the sky with orange smoke.

The following day, we had some role-playing drills, one person in each group being selected to fall overboard, while the other teammates worked on communicating with the Captain, Coast Guard, and each other to make sure the person was safely rescued. A second drill started out with a fire (which was hidden somewhere, represented by a glowstick, and simulated with a smoke machine), and quickly escalated into an abandon ship procedure. We had to grab the EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, which is one of the most important pieces of equipment during an emergency, sending a signal to the Coast Guard alerting them of its position), a box of signal flares, and deploy the life raft, then hop into a demonstration raft.

The gap between the ship and water was substantial - but somehow everyone succeeded! Unfortunately, I lost both my team's EPIRB and flares when I turned my back on them to get into my survival suit and a "rogue wave" (aka Dan, one of our instructors) swept them away. Both our teams got Bs for the day, but we did successfully get off the ship and "survive"!

After the demo, we went into the water in our suits, and practiced our safety positions (in case we were being located by helicopter or other boats), and each practiced overturning the life raft in case it deployed incorrectly.

On the final day, we had biological training. We learned about the high-tech equipment we would use out at sea (magnetic strips would send the lengths of the fish to a computer, instead of us having to read and manually record each measurement), the giant multi-ton hauls we would potentially recover (which could supposedly include anything from military and medical waste to fully packed suitcases to sheep and cats), the species we would likely observe (rockfish, chimaeras, skates, urchins, flatfish, sea stars, squid), and then practiced sorting, sexing, and taking otoliths out of a sample of a discarded haul.

After a long 3 days, we enjoyed some fresh seafood with some fellow scientist-survivors and said goodbye to the beach, knowing that this was only a gentle preview for what was to come in the open ocean. Jessica is currently at sea, traveling in Washington and Oregon, and I won't be deploying until October - hopefully these survival skills will stick until then!

 

By Marilyn Cruickshank

With a vast habitat like the ocean, unusual encounters might happen all the time, but our chances of observing them are pretty slim. Last week, the naturalists of Monterey Bay Whale Watch had such a chance, when they spotted a pod of killer whales harassing a juvenile blue whale.

While the interaction didn’t last long, it was clear that members of the pod were rushing the rolling rorqual (baleen whale), as it flung its fluke (tail) into the air. Killer whales, which are actually large dolphins, exhibit similar behavior when they hunt gray whale calves. According to Monterey Bay Whale Watch, such an encounter with a blue whale has never before been recorded in California.

Most of the attack occurred underwater, before the larger whale retreated. It surfaced a quarter of a mile, and then a half a mile away from the killer whale pod, apparently deciding that any food gotten in that area was not worth the hassle. Since even juvenile blue whales can be 50 feet long or more, it is unlikely the pod could have done it serious damage or gotten any nutritional benefit. However, blood was spotted on its fluke, which shows that the interaction was not playful.

While we can only speculate about the reasons for bothering the blue whale, one such might be to practice hunting maneuvers specific to that pod, or to teach younger pod members the ropes. More such encounters would have to be observed before any scientific conclusions could be drawn, but even one helps us learn a little bit more about these amazing creatures.

When we see killer whales doing such things, it’s tempting to think of them as bullies, since they seem to gain no nutritional benefits. However, it is important to remember that such activities help to strengthen social ties within the pod, and that killer whales are wild animals that can’t just go to Safeway if they don’t find food that day. The killer whales are simply doing what they do best- working together to hone their skills as predators in a harsh ocean environment. Even still, it’s good to know that the blue whale got away with little harm, ready to eat tons of krill another day.

If you want to see these and other marine mammal and birds in their natural habitat, you can go to Monterey Bay Whale Watch for more information.

By Scott Gabara

Back in December 2013 I went on my last sampling bout for my thesis to Santa Catalina Island. My team included three amazing colleagues from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. We conducted surveys in sand and rhodolith beds which will be used to compare the communities. Rhodoliths are free-living calcareous algae that look like little pink tumbleweeds and propagate above sand.

They appear to provide diverse structure increasing abundance and diversity of flora and fauna, similar to how trees provide habitat for epiphytic plants, climbing vines, and animals like birds and mammals.

We conducted surveys to estimate the abundance of macroalgae growing on each substrate, macroinvertebrates, fishes, and took cores for later sorting under a microscope to estimate microinvertebres within each substrate. We celebrated by wearing santa hats which made the long sampling dives more fun. It was a great way to finish up my thesis.