NOAA Teacher at Sea
Erica Marlaine
Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson
June 22 – July 15, 2019
Mission: Pollock Acoustic-Trawl Survey
Geographic Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska
Date: July 12, 2019
Weather Data from the Bridge:
Latitude: 57º 09.61 N
Longitude: 152º 20.99W
Wind Speed: 15 knots
Wind Direction: 210 º
Air Temperature: 12º Celsius
Barometric Pressure: 1013 mb
Depth of water column 84m
Surface Sea Temperature: 12º Celsius
Science and Technology Log
Onboard the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson with me are two volunteer biologists: Evan Reeve and Nathan Battey. Evan is on the opposite shift, so we often pass each other, but on occasion, we have been in the fish or chem lab at the same time.
I arrived here knowing very little about fish (other than how to care for a beta fish and how to cook salmon and trout). Evan, on the other hand, is a recent graduate of the University of Washington (or as he likes to say, “U-DUB”) with a degree in Biology (and an emphasis in fish biology). When I say recent, I mean recent. Evan graduated five days before we boarded the ship.
Evan has a remarkable “ready for anything” attitude whether it is the start of his 12-hour shift, or the end. His background may be one reason why. Originally from San Diego, he spent his freshman year at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. A planned-year studying abroad at the Universidad Veritas in San Jose, Costa Rica got cut short after one semester due to an illness that forced him to return to San Diego. There, Evan made the decision to serve our country and joined the Navy. For a few years, he served as a Navy corpsman stationed with Marine infantry units until he was injured during training. That’s when Ready-for-Anything Evan resumed his studies, eventually arriving at his beloved “U-DUB”.
Evan currently lives in Washington, where he volunteers with the NOAA Hatchery Reform Program in Port Orchard, Washington, tracking hatchery released juvenile salmon in Puget Sound using both acoustics and traditional fishing techniques. When a biology professor mentioned the opportunity to spend time on the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson in the Gulf of Alaska, Evan of course volunteered, eager to participate in a larger scale study involving different fish species. In Puget Sound, the haul is often 10 salmon. In contrast, the haul being studied onboard the Oscar Dyson is often 1000 pounds of Walleye pollock several times a day (along with prowfish, Pacific herring, rockfish, and a lot of jellyfish). Speaking of prowfish, herring, rockfish, and jellyfish…
FUN FISH FACTS AND PHOTOS:
PROWFISH: In my earlier blog, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, I wrote about the lumpsucker being the cutest fish I had ever seen. A close runner up is the baby prowfish.
Every time we get a prowfish in a catch, everyone wants to look at it! We usually get juvenile prowfish which are about the length of my finger. (Adults can get up to 3 feet long.) The juveniles are very soft and smooth looking, and their lower jaw juts out slightly, making them look like they are pouting. Unlike adults prowfish, who spend most of their time near the bottom of the sea floor, juvenile prowfish spend their time in the middle levels of the water column, which is the area we are trawling on the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson. I was surprised to learn that juvenile prowfish will try to avoid predators by hiding within the bells of large jellyfish.
PACIFIC HERRING, OR AS I LIKE TO CALL THEM, THE RAINBOW FISH:
As a special education preschool teacher, I often read and discuss The Rainbow Fish (by Marcus Pfister) with my students.
It is a popular children’s book about a little fish with very sparkly scales who learns to share. Rainbow Fish was considered the most beautiful fish in the ocean because of his many sparkly scales. When a plain, little fish asks for one of the sparkly scales, Rainbow Fish refuses to share. This makes all the other fish mad, and they no longer want to play with the Rainbow Fish. In the end, Rainbow Fish decides to share his sparkly scales with all the other fish, keeping only one for himself. He is less beautiful than he was before, but he has new friends and is now the happiest fish in the sea.
The Pacific herring is similarly covered in sparkly scales, but boy, is he a super sharer (as we say in preschool)! Since herring are a small fish, they compensate for their size by forming schools (or groups of fish that swim together). Swimming in schools protects them as it reduces the likelihood that any one of them will be eaten by a predator. Sometimes we get only one herring with our huge haul of pollock. They are somewhat similar in shape and color. Evan (the volunteer biologist) has a theory: that it’s a herring who got separated from his school and sought protection by joining and blending in with a school of pollock. As a preschool teacher, I love the idea that a group of pollock would allow or even invite a lost little herring to “play” with them.
Other times, we get a lot of herring, and as I mentioned they love to share their sparkly scales. Everything (and everyone) ends up sparkly: the pollock, the fish belt, the measuring boards, the tables, and ME! You can always tell when there is herring in a catch by the sparkly fish scales in my hair.
ROCKFISH: Occasionally a few rockfish are in the trawl net. Rockfish have large eyes, and are not particularly sparkly or cute, but they are delicious! I even learned to fillet them!
It was exciting to later see the rockfish cooked and served for dinner.
AND FINALLY THE JELLYFISH: Not yet… keep reading…
FIRST, Nathan Battey: Nathan, the other volunteer biologist onboard, is on my shift, and works in the fish lab with me 12 hours a day processing the fish hauls. He is my “go-to fisheries biologist” whenever I need help identifying a fish or jellyfish.”
Since he is originally from Goffstown, New Hampshire, it should not come as a surprise that Nathan ended up on a ship since Goffstown is home to the famous Giant Pumpkin Regatta! Every October, Goffstown residents transform enormous pumpkins into boats. They scoop out the sometimes 1000-pound pumpkins, climb in, and race them down the Piscatoquag River.
Nathan studied biology and earth science at the University of New Hampshire and took a lot of oceanography courses along the way. Since graduating in 2015, he has done a myriad of fascinating things. He quantified nitrogen cycling in the wetlands of coastal New England, worked in a microbiology lab, counted larval fish under a microscope, regulated the upstream passage of salmon on the Seattle fish ladder, worked as a scallop fisheries observer, was a State Park Ranger on the eastern shore of Virginia, and worked with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (alongside NOAA scientists, tribal scientists, fish and wildlife scientists, and National Park scientists) on the recolonization of the Elwha River for salmon and other fish after the dams there were removed. (The tribe had successfully sued the U.S. for the removal of the dams based upon their right to fish there.)
The last two positions were through AmeriCorps, which he highly recommends! AmeriCorps is a network of national service programs. It is sometimes thought of as the domestic Peace Corps since members serve on projects within the United States. According to their website: “AmeriCorps is your moment to take the path less traveled, to break the status quo, to stop talking about the problem and be the solution.” Whatever your passion, it is likely there is an AmeriCorps opportunity perfect for you. There are projects in the fields of education, public safety, health care, and environmental protection. If you are interested in learning more about AmeriCorps, visit https://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps
Nathan is also a talented artist and drew detailed sketches of both marine and bird species which amazed everyone and now hang on the walls of the chem lab.
He will also be remembered for the nickname he gave to the Chrysaora melanaster jellyfish: Chrysaora melanasty.
AT LAST, THE JELLYFISH:
Chrysaora melanaster are magnificent creatures. The photo below, captured one night using the drop camera, shows how elegantly they glide through the water with their ribbon-like tentacles flowing gracefully behind them.
It is often my job to grab the jellyfish as they come down the belt, separating them from the pollock. I have held some that are an inch wide, and some that are almost 3 feet wide (and quite heavy). Jellyfish are measured by their bell diameter, or how wide the top part is (not the tentacles).
The photo above might give you an idea of how the nickname “melanasty” came to be. In the net, all the glorious, long, sticky, ribbon-like tentacles of the Chrysaora melanaster get tangled and attached to all the glorious, long, sticky, ribbon-like tentacles of the other Chrysaora melanaster. As you try to pull one jellyfish off the belt, several more are attached in a slimy mess, and you often get splashed in the face, mouth, or eyes with jellyfish “goo.” One day, dealing with the tangle, Nathan dubbed them “melanasty” and the nickname stuck.