Citizen Science
Dates to Remember
Critical Areas Ordinance: Nov 9 San Juan, Nov 12 Orcas, Nov 16 Lopez
Hazwoper Training (Hazardous Materials handling, leading to certification to help with oiled birds, should there be an oil spill) Saturday, Nov 21, noon to 5 pm in Friday Harbor at the Fire Station. The class will be for new people training to be oiled wildlife and/or containment responders, as well as already-trained responders who need HAZ hours in order to stay at your current level of certification or to increase your HAZ hours.
Mon, Nov 23: Russel Barsh send us this message: Hey, gang, it's time to schedule some lab days to take a look at all the salmon gut contents we collected last summer! We got a total of over 600 gut samples, and I've simply split them between Waldron and Lopez for counting. This year our salmon ate a lot of fish, which makes things easier -- so the task is not as overwhelming as it first might seem! We're also using a new protocol that's simpler and quicker than last year. And of course you all know much more than you did a year ago!
At the same time, our original funder -- the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation -- has just asked me to arrange a Waldron site visit so they can talk to you about what's developed since we began studying salmon around Waldron three years ago! Just one person is coming up (from Seattle) -- Brian Ferrasci-O'Malley, whom I've met before, and can attest that he's very pleasant, easygoing, and genuinely interested in salmon research. Of course, Brian's report on Waldron may influence the Foundation's future support of the network of local "citizen science" teams that I have been developing around the county -- and also influence the Foundation's future approach to funding generally. We've been held up as an example that "citizen science" is a good investment in communities.
Brian would like to try to spend Monday November 23 on Waldron. Can we can get our plankton counters together that day, as well as some of our field people that pulled nets and lavaged all summer? It would be great to simply plan a day of work and let Brian sit in and share the fun. And if he can meet a cross-section of our core worker bees -- both plankton counters and lavagers -- I think it will be a success, since the work you've all been doing speaks for itself.
If November 23 works reasonably well for you all, I'll arrange with David and Janyce to bring Brian over from Friday Harbor Labs that morning, and get him back to the Harbor by dark. Spend a few hours counting gut samples, share lunch together, spend just a bit of time beginning our discussion of what we'll do in 2010 (including new initiative like seabirds).
Let me know how this looks to you--
Does your garden need weeding? Find out at this site
Links
You can click on the grey links just above the oodling salmon picture. The 2009 beach seine notes are fairly complete. The 2007 and 2008 notes were not formal. You can also hover over most of the images to see them in larger format. Click on text that appears in light blue (sorry about the color) to link somewhere pertinent. Please talk to Julie if you have questions, additions, or corrections.
Other Related Websites
Ecoystem Marketplace
Yale's Sustainability Newsletter
San Juan County Beachwatchers (see their links on the right side of the page)
Overview
Our Citizen Science group is open to all. Please see Julie or any other participant for information. Current projects include a Baseline Plankton Project (see Donna, Fred, Josie, Stan, or Bill C), a shorebird count (see Winnie or Tony), water quality (see Bob S or Glen), and beach seining (see Laurie or Gretchen). Kwiaht (Russel Barsh) and we offer occasional free talks on natural history at the school or elsewhere.
We have participated in seining our beaches for some time, first with Drs. Russel Barsh and Tina Wyllie-Echeverria, and more recently with the "Big Picture" group (Drs. Fresh and Beamer) and Kwiaht (Dr. Barsh).
As far as I understand, the Big Picture group wants to get an overview of where juvenile salmon, especially chinook, go when they leave their natal streams or rivers. They count and measure, looking for migration pulses, fish sizes, and stream-of-origin data.
Kwiaht wants to know what sustains salmon fry as they pause at our beaches on their way elsewhere, and what impacts their survival. What do they eat? What kind of beach do they congregate at? They count, measure, and do gastric lavage. They check water quality and the plankton and insects found in salmon fry stomachs.
Our Citizen Science group wants to know what kind of fish, not just salmon, live here. We also want to help the scientists with whatever they're doing. We want to enable a knowledge-based sense of environmental stewardship in our community.
This is a rough overview. If you are one of the people mentioned above and have a different sense of what's going on, please email me and I'll update the information.