This fall, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Marine Reserve Program released their Ecological Monitoring Plan for Oregon's 5 marine reserve sites along our coast. As it generally goes, agency plans aren't something we all like to saddle up to in our spare time for a good read, but this plan has some style and pop and is as much about discovering and seeing our ocean world through a whole a new and exciting suite of technologies as it is about the core research for marine reserve evaluation. What do "SMURFS" and "video landers" have to do with all of this? Dive in to learn a bit more.
The vast majority of Oregon's ocean waters (and that of the world) remain largely unstudied. While many scientists are hard at work trying to unravel the complexities of our ocean, the salty realm still remains a mystery compared to our knowledge of terrestrial environments. Even the surface of the moon is better understood than our ocean floor! Fortunately, Oregon's new system of marine reserves is creating some exciting opportunities in furthering our exploration and understanding of Oregon's ocean ecosystems, habitats and inhabitants!
Understanding our ocean takes a suite of research tools and technologies - varying conditions and limitations of technologies requires multiple approaches
The new Ecological Monitoring Plan outlines in a very public-friendly design, the primary elements of Oregon's Marine Reserve Program, with a special focus on the tools and long term plans for ecological monitoring. ODFW put out a great primer on the piece which you can read here as well as download the full report. Inside you'll find photos and illustrations of the monitoring tools being used and interesting highlights of research collaborations with partners. Each marine reserve site is profiled to give a deeper understanding of what and how we're learning as well as what makes each site unique.
ODFW Marine Reserve Program staff deploy an remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) into one of Oregon's marine reserves
Through use of new technologies and studies, we're literally seeing Oregon's marine reserve sites for the first time in many ways. Remotely operated vehicles and video landers are giving us high definition footage, which is as important to marine reserve evaluation as it is to general discovery of habitat features, and species assemblages. Exploring some of our depths and ocean habitats for the first time, we're discovering and seeing things we've never seen before. Moreover, ODFW has been sending out weekly updates on their research and discoveries, with cool stories, photos, videos and more - you can sign up here. Dive a bit deeper and check out these links below for ODFW marine reserve:
Photos
Videos
Stories
Website
A snorkler recovers a SMURF unit at left, which creates surface area for juvenile fishes (right) using the marine reserve to be captured and recorded
And just what exactly is a SMURF? - Standard Monitoring Unit for the Recruitment of Fish. Not the little blue cartoon people, SMURFs are research tools that allow us to quantify the abundance of juvenile fish species utilizing marine reserve habitats. Maximizing marine reserve conservation benefits means protecting both juvenile and adult habitats, so SMURFs are helping us to better understand how the "babies" use these special places. This is just one example of the many cool collaborations profiled in the ecological monitoring plan, others include intertidal monitoring, hypoxia and ocean acidification studies.
With so much new information coming in, it's hard for ODFW alone to share all the cool things that are happening. To that extent, Surfrider participates with the Oregon Marine Reserves Partnership to help further support outreach and awareness efforts for Oregon's marine reserves. Much of the new tools and technologies are collecting great photos and video content, which we're helping to edit, interpret and share on an ongoing basis so that you to can be involved in the ecological discovery of these special places. Follow us on Facebook and get awesome, real time updates from this great work!
Cape Perpetua Marine Reserve - Oregon's Ocean Legacy from DELPHI CINEMA on Vimeo.