February 2001: Pam Rogers, Editor
It's Soup Kitchen Time
Despite the lack of rain and true winter, demand has been growing for the return of the HMSC Soup Kitchen. Every Tuesday at noon, beginning February 6, homemade soup and assorted goodies will be available in the HMSC mailroom as a fund raiser for the Lincoln County Food Share. OSU observes February as Food Share Month and encourages all employees to remember the hungry with donations of either money or canned goods. If you wish to donate, please make your check payable to Lincoln County Food Share and turn it in to the Director's Office.
Jessica Waddell will be the kick-off chef, with a delicious Mexican bean soup. Dann Cutter promises another one of his specialties and we're all hoping the famous bakers from the RSF building will once again delight us with their breads and sweets. There will be a chef sign-up sheet in the Director's office for those who like to schedule ahead of time. Please bring your own cup/bowl and spoon if possible.
Come on over and have a good meal and a good time!
Interview with Ladd Irvine
by Carol DeLancey
Like many of us, Ladd Irvine's first job out after college had nothing to do with his field of study. Having completed a B.S. in biology from the University of Puget Sound, Ladd ended up working at Jerry's Home Improvement in Eugene. But then he heard that Dr. Bruce Mate was hiring for a temporary position: a gofer to help with the OSU Marine Mammal Program for three to six months. He jumped at the chance to get into his field, and came to the Hatfield Marine Science Center in April 1999. That temporary position went beyond the original six months, and last August Ladd became a permanent staff member, with the title of Research Technician.
Ladd says he does "all the important stuff that is not important enough for everyone else to do." This includes boat maintenance, Web page work, video editing, helping with strandings, and "miscellaneous gofer work." That last category might encompass the six-month survey of migrating gray whales that Ladd worked on from December '99 through May 2000, counting whales from the top of the Yaquina Head lighthouse
His recreational pursuits are somewhat weather dependent: "I'm an outdoors guy, but I prefer no rain." When the weather is cooperative, he loves to hike and camp; and having recently finished a class on flytying, he's looking forward to flyfishing this year with his own flies. When the air is too wet, he's just as happy shooting pool and having a beer.
Ladd lists "graduating from college and getting a job most folks would kill for" as his most significant accomplishment to date. When asked where his favorite place is in the world, he simply answered, "Outside."
Although Ladd says he can hop on one foot, rub his belly and pat his head all at the same time, he refused to demonstrate this skill, so his declaration must be taken with a certain amount of scientific skepticism. His final statement is self-evident, however: "I'm about the most laid-back person you'll ever meet."
Word Whiz Joins Marine Mammal Program
Carol DeLancey has joined the Marine Mammal Group as an administrative assistant, and she brings a host of skills to the position: writing, editing, grant-writing, and organizing. Currently she is editing Bruce Mate's Guide to Marine Mammals of the East Pacific and doing literature searching for a revision of The Natural History of Oregon Coast Mammals. Carol was formerly in charge of education for the Oregon Coast Aquarium volunteer program. She wrote and edited the volunteer newsletter and all materials for training. She has a regular column in the Oregon Coast Magazine, entitled "Ocean Wise." A sample of her writing skills is showcased in the article ABOVE, in which she interviews Ladd Irvine, also of Bruce's group.
Although she attended OSU for one year in Fisheries and Wildlife, she changed career directions and finished up at the University of Oregon with a B.A. in English. This combination of science and English has proven very helpful in her career. For fun she loves hiking, road biking (other than on Hwy 101), photography, travel, natural history, writing, house plants and making the world's best hot chocolate. She sees herself as a storyteller and when you see what she shared about other aspects of her life and interests below, you will have lots of reasons to ask her to tell her stories. Now about that going off the edge at Cape Perpetua...
B.O.B. Welcomed in Grand Style
Visitor Center staff and volunteers threw a welcome party for the newest occupant of the Visitor Center octopus tank and a good time was had by several hundred visitors. Andy Jones, a 10-year-old from Corvallis, won the naming contest with his entry of B.O.B. (Big Orange Boy). Coloring contest winners were on hand to collect their prizes. Bruce Koike, local artist and aquarist, gave a gyotaku presentation using a small octopus pulled from the freezer. Bill Hanshumaker dissected an octopus, giving specimens to Dr. Karen Miller, OSU professor in biochemistry, for her research on octopus blood genetics.
Dr. Roland Anderson, biologist from the Seattle Aquarium gave two talks about octopuses, one for the general public on octopuses of the Pacific Northwest and one for local animal husbandry staff from the HMSC, Oregon Coast Aquarium and Undersea Gardens on current octopus research.
B.O.B. was donated to the HMSVC by owner/captain Mike Sorenson of the F/V Miss Raven, who fought suggestions that B.O.B. become the boat's sushi lunch and instead, brought him in to be the new star exhibit in the Visitor Center.
Pictures of the festivities can be seen at http://backup.hmsc.orst.edu/backup/cat/scrap/octoday.1/octogp.html
Park Steers Seafood Lab While Morrissey Goes on Sabbatical
Michael Morrissey, Director of the OSU Seafood Lab is on sabbatical leave beginning Feb 1. He will be at the Center for Biological Investigation (CIBNOR) in La Paz, Mexico. CIBNOR is one of 27 centers of the SEP-CONACYT System (a coordination of the Dept of Education and the National Council of Science & Technology) located in the southern part of the Baja California peninsula. He will return to the office the first of July. During Michael's sabbatical, Jae Park will be taking his responsibility at the Seafood lab.
Jae W. Park will conduct the Second OSU-ENSIA Surimi Technology School in Paris, France on Feb 7-8, 2001. The school is designed for practicing surimi technicians to gain knowledge of surimi technology and its utilization in food product development.
On April 9, 2001 the Surimi Industry Forum sponsored by Oregon Sea Grant will be held at the OSU Seafood Lab with the 9th Annual OSU Surimi Technology School to follow on April 10-12, 2001. The enrollment number currently has reached 70.
The Pacific Fisheries Technologists will meet in La Paz Mexico on February 24-28, 2001. Dr. Morrissey and Dr. Park will attend and present papers as well as graduate research assistants Jenny Hansen and Jacek Jaczynski.
Dr. Myeong Rak Choi will be working with Dr. Jae Park at the OSU Seafood Lab for one year. Dr. Choi is an Associate Professor at Yosu National University in Yosu-si Chunnam, Korea. His wife and two children are with him. He will be working with seafood wastes and surimi technology while in Astoria.
New Signage in South Beach
You have probably noticed new directional signs for the HMSVC, Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Port of Newport in South Beach. Laura Anderson, former OSU Marine Resource Management graduate student, oversaw the cooperative effort between the three facilities to design and produce the signs, a project that has been a couple of years in the making.
The purpose of the signs was threefold: to promote South Beach as a visitor destination with a good mix of activities that are connected and complimentary; to enhance the aesthetics by providing theme, size and color coordination, lessening sign clutter; and to help visitors navigate through the area, promoting safer driving and less visitor frustration.
The signs were designed to coordinate with the existing theme and color used by each facility, so the HMSC portion of the cooperative signs tie in with the campus signs that were installed several months ago.
Tonya Builder and Jiraporn Trisak Complete Degrees
During the past few months two of David Sampson's graduate students successfully defended their theses. Tonya Builder, with the NMFS Fisheries Resource Analysis and Monitoring Division in Newport, presented her Master's thesis entitled "Feasibility of supplementary sampling of the commercial groundfish landings in Oregon using seafood plant workers". Jiraporn Trisak, from Thailand, presented her PhD thesis entitled "The influence of biological characteristics on fisheries co-management: a game theory perspective".
Tonya's thesis was an evaluation of a pilot study in which seafood plant
workers took routine length measurements from samples of three commercially
important groundfish species. Tonya compared their measurements with
independent measurements taken by herself and by ODFW port samplers. In
general Tonya found that the data collected by the plant workers were
reasonably accurate, especially given the large variability in fish lengths
that is typical of the groundfish fishery. Jiraporn's thesis developed a
model for examining how fish stock size and productivity influence whether
fishers cooperate with an annual harvest quota. Her model fishery has two
fishers, each with the option of either harvesting or exceeding their quota
share. Given that each fisher wants to maximize their discounted profits
from fishing, each fisher's best strategic action (cooperate or cheat)
depends on the other fisher's action. In general the analysis indicates
that stock size and productivity are important determinants of the fishers'
behavior, but the fishers' attitudes towards cooperation and economic
factors must also be considered.
Fossil Festival in Visitor Center
The public is invited to bring in their "beach finds" on Saturday, February 10 to be identified by Bill Hanshumaker and Dr. William Orr, University of Oregon professor of oceanography, geology and paleontology.
Dr. Orr will give two talks on Saturday. At 11:00 he will talk about "Oregon's LaBrea", bog deposits near Woodburn where sloth teeth, human hair dated to be 12,000 years old, and a condor with a16-foot wingspan have been found. At 2:00 Dr. Orr will talk about microfossils entitled "It's a Small, Small World." Dr. Orr is Director of the Thomas Condon State Museum of Fossils in Eugene.
The Fossil Festival is the first in a series of Coastal Hazards activities presented in the Visitor Center. The next event will be a talk by George Priest on Saturday, March 17 on Landslides on the Oregon Coast. George will bring DOGAMI hazard maps of the coast which show areas susceptible to landslides.
Prospero Document Delivery
A new way of getting articles to readers is just starting up in the library. This new service is called Prospero. Using Prospero, scanned articles are converted into PDF format and posted on a web server. The individual requester is automatically notified of availability by e-mail and is given an ID code that enables the user to access the articles. The requester can read, printout or save the article. Service should be a little faster, since fewer articles will come by campus mail or U.S. mail.
There are a couple of points that HMSC users might want to keep in mind about this new service. One thing to think about is copyright law. You can't mail copies of these articles to your friends! Current copyright law does allow as "fair use" keeping one print copy and one electronic archival copy of an article. Another thing to remember is that the articles will only be on the web for two weeks, after which they will be deleted. If you know you are going to be at sea or travelling, you might want to select a designated borrower to receive articles for you, so you don't lose anything.
Library staff are very interested in your impressions of this new service.
Any feedback, especially on ways we can improve it, is welcome.
Personnel Notes
Farewells were said sadly to Hamdi Ogut and Kyoung Chul Park. They have successfully completed their doctorates and are now off to greener pastures. Hamdi will be returning to Turkey where he will be teaching at the Black Sea Institute in Trabzon. Kyoung and his family will be going to Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he has a post-doctorate position in fish disease.
Congratulations to Erik and Tasha Sturm on the birth of their first child, a girl, Marina, born January 25 and weighing in at six pounds, six ounces!
Congratulations also to Jiraporn Trisak on successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis! Jiraporn will now return to Thailand and work for her government in return for their financial support during her graduate studies.
Congratulations to Tonya Builder who also completed her Master's degree! Both of these scientists were students of Dave Sampson (see related article).
Somjintana Tungkawachara, is a recipient of the Walter G. Jones Memorial Scholarship for 2001. Tana is Dr. Jae Park's, graduate research assistant. She is working on problems of quality control of fish sauce made with Pacific whiting (surimi) by-products. This will enable local seafood processors to use surimi by-products in fish sauce processing to reduce the cost and incubation time, while achieving the same quality as the regular product, thus increasing the value of the whiting harvest. Fish sauce is a basic element in Asian cuisine and in addition to the large Asian market, there is a growing market in the United States. It will contribute to value-added products coming from what used to be considered a "trash fish." She will be presenting her research at the Institute of Food Technology meeting in June.