Whales – Proteus

Chase-180705-9255 — A rare Nazca Booby sighting brought joy to the team of wildlife observers on the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

Precious moments are abundant at sea, but, like most things, there are challenges. Gorgeous sunsets and getting close to wild creatures most people will never witness also comes with long hours, bouts of seasickness, and being away from loved ones.

California Group Director for Point Blue Conservation Science Jaime Jahncke went on his first science expedition in 1994; it was a cruise to assess anchovy stocks off the coast of Peru where he grew up. “Being at sea is fantastic. You can see things that no one else can see like a breaching whale or a rare bird,” said Jahncke. “But if you are sick it is pretty awful because there’s nothing you can do to escape the thing that’s making you sick.”

We’re off the north-central coast of California on the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada for a marine mammal and seabird survey. A team of scientists has spent the last week logging wildlife sightings and collecting water and biological samples as part of a long-term effort to monitor National Marine Sanctuary ecosystems.

A humpback whale with the North Farallon Islands. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

Brown Pelican off the coast of north-central California. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

Three Mola mola, or ocean sunfish, spotted near the Farallon Islands. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

On the last day of this cruise, members of the wildlife observation team spoke a little bit about this work and why they think protected places like our National Marine Sanctuaries are important. The following is written in their own words, which have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Jan Roletto

She is chief scientist and research coordinator for Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary; Roletto has been going out to sea regularly since the late 90s.

I miss my husband, dog, and cats, but I live near where I work so you’re never really that far from home. That is one of benefits of place-based monitoring; with species-based monitoring, you have to go to where the animals are.

My job is really diverse. I like being able to put the pieces of the puzzle together for an unknown question. As research coordinator, my job is to find researchers who are doing work relevant to the sanctuary – people like Carina Fish who are studying the impact of ocean acidification on deep sea corals.

Long-term monitoring data isn’t exciting – it’s doesn’t get the “oohs and aahs” but it is really important. You can’t identify what’s really special or different without long-term monitoring data. For example, we can do rapid damage assessments because we have this data. Long-term monitoring is like a savings account. You put the data aside – you put a little away and when the need arises you have it. We wouldn’t be able to talk about climate change, about long-term change, if we didn’t have that long-term monitoring data.

It’s satisfying to have all this data when there’s an event like an oil spill incident – a leaky vessel or an accident – and be well prepared to respond. We’ve used ACCESS and Sanctuary data so it’s satisfying to be able to say, “This is what it looked like before; this is what it looks like now; and, this is what it will take to make to restore it to that previous state.”

Sanctuaries are important because U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service protects populations; sanctuaries protect habitats. You can’t have good populations of whatever is out there without homes – can’t have one without the other. We take care of the grocery store and the apartment building and fisheries takes care of the things that live there.

Kirsten Lindquist

Lindquist is the ecosystem monitoring manager for the Greater Farallones Association (GFA); she’s the birder for this cruise and has been going out to sea for 18 years.

I think the long days with no breaks (in terms of working 10 or 30 days straight) are hard. You get some intermittent weather breaks, but nothing you can plan for. You do get tired.

I love being in the ocean wilderness and the extreme environment — seeing all the different faces of it. On shore, people go to national parks and they can be there and experience them in a way that people don’t have the chance with oceans 40-plus miles off shore. I think if people did, they would understand why [National Marine Sanctuaries] are so special and why they should be protected.

Dru Devlin

Devlin is a research associate for Greater Farallones Association and wildlife observer on this cruise; she has been working on programs at sea like ACCESS since 2005.

The break in the normal routine is challenging. I love to come out here and then it’s great to get back home, but when I’m home, I can’t wait to be back out here.

It’s physically hard standing in weather and sun for the long hours – the change in diet and exercise too, but I love it. I miss my family, but I think it’s important for my son to see his mom do something that’s important to her and something that is important to others.

I like being part of a team and part of something that contributes to the knowledge base. Being out on the ocean is a touchstone of who I am – it inspires me to keep doing this work. It’s gratifying over the years to see what we’ve contributed to the knowledge base and how much more there remains to do.

Marine sanctuaries protect valuable resources like the biodiversity of life we see here – from the rich basis of life, the phytoplanktonic stuff all the way up to the largest mammals on Earth. If we don’t study it, we won’t know what we have – hopefully others see the value in that.

Taylor Nairn

She is the data manager for Greater Farallones Association and the data logger in this expedition; this is Nairn’s fourth year at sea.

Every cruise is different. The weather is pretty hard, but you can get through it and that feels good. The lack of privacy is hard too – after a while I need to turn inward, but it’s also good to be forced to get out of it.

I love the sense of adventure and independence. The sea is one of the last wildernesses and getting to experience that is really magical. Wild spaces have intrinsic value. True wild spaces and ecosystems are valuable in and of themselves.

Science Team ACCESS Cruise July 2018 — ACCESS Cruise Science Team, July 2018. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Follower her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.

Chase-CTD — The deck crew works to return the CTD rosette to the side deck. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

We’re on the fourth day of an Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies, or ACCESS, cruise — a long-term effort, now in its 15th year, to monitor and understand the oceanographic conditions, prey availability, and abundance and distribution of seabirds and whales in the region. The data collected on these cruises, which take place three to five times per year, are used to help inform decision-making and research priorities in North-Central California National Marine Sanctuaries. ACCESS is a partnership between NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries and Point Blue Conservation Science.

On the flying bridge, the observers and data logger are bundled for what is shaping up to be the coldest and windiest day of the expedition so far. The radios many of us wear, click and buzz in unison, “Bridge to flying bridge, 15 minutes to the end of the line.”

“Copy that, thank you,” Data Logger Taylor Nairn replies.

Yesterday, the ocean merged into the sky at the horizon point with rich shades of blue, but today grey blends into grey. The quiet is peaceful.

Once we reach the end of this transect line, we will be “on station.” At set points along each transect line, there are five to six stations where the ship stops so a team can collect samples using a variety of equipment and techniques. As the wildlife observers’ work for the morning concludes, the wet lab team and deck crew spring into action.

Jamie Jahncke is the director of the California Current Group for Point Blue Conservation Science. He selected these points along the transect for sample collection. To Jahncke, the greater number of sampling locations allow his team to paint a more accurate portrait of what is happening where the warm, surface layer of water rests on top of the cold nutrient-rich layer.

He explains, when people look at water, everyone thinks it all looks the same, but it’s not. There are all these points where tiny differences in temperature will impact the distribution of food and prey. “We’re looking for places where critters tend to aggregate, attracting seabirds and whales,” says Jahncke.

Down on the side deck, the Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) rosette is deployed. The CTD carries 12 Niskin bottles with levers that allow the team to open them strategically, collecting water samples at various depths up to 500 meters. (A detailed explanation of this can be found here and here.)

According to Jahncke, measuring how well a water sample conducts electricity, also known as conductivity, is directly related to salinity. Salinity is the concentration of salt and other inorganic compounds in seawater. Salty seawater is heavier than freshwater, as is cold water. Combined with temperature data, scientists are able to better understand how water properties and nutrients are distributed throughout the water column.

While crew and wet lab team are out on the side deck, Grace Kumaishi is inside prepping labels and materials for the samples that will come in. There’s a great deal of labeling and packaging to do, so it is clear when and where the materials were gathered. Additionally, the findings will be shared with least 10 different federal, state, and non-government research institutions.

Kumaishi was really nervous for this, her first big cruise. She’s a research assistant at Point Blue. Having just completed her bachelor’s in ecology, behavior, and evolution at University of California Los Angeles, she’s in that nebulous period between undergraduate work and grad school. She’s debating the pros and cons of masters and Ph.D. programs. This internship with Point Blue offers her the opportunity to build relationships with mentors, watch graduate students conduct their research, and see firsthand what a career in ocean science might look like.

Most days for Kumaishi are spent in the lab processing samples collected on cruises such as this one. “It’s really nice to get out of the lab and do some field work,” she says.

Chase-carinactd — Carina Fish collects water samples for her research on the ways climate change is altering ocean chemistry. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

Outside, the CTD is back on the deck and Carina Fish collects her samples first. Fish is doctoral candidate in marine biogeochemistry at University of California Davis’s Bodega Marine Laboratory. Using a small tube from the bottom of the bottle on the rosette, she rinses out a small brown glass bottle with seawater to make sure there are no contaminants. Then, she gives it a good shake, dumps the contents, and collects her sample. When Fish finishes she calls out, “Ryan, you ready?” He is there in a flash, using same process as Fish.

Ryan Anderson is working on a master’s in marine science with an emphasis on physical and chemical oceanography at San Francisco State University. The samples he gathers will be sent to a San Francisco State University lab to determine the amount of nutrients in the water.

Once Fish fills all her bottles, she adds mercuric chloride to each one; the chemical halts growth of any biological materials in the water without interacting with the carbonate chemistry that interests her.

Yesterday, Fish and I were up on the bow looking at a massive bloom of Chrysaora, or sea nettles. I asked her about the jellies; laughing loudly, she joked that she doesn’t know anything about “the living stuff.” Fish studies aragonite saturation states, which are used to track ocean acidification, a condition caused by climate change.

There’s a constant hum from the winch overhead and the deck vibrates beneath our feet. Everyone is wearing brightly colored foul weather gear, life jackets, and hard hats. On the side deck, we’re only about 12 feet above the water with heavy machinery and the ever-present threat of rough seas — safety is key.

Chase-GraceMeredith — Grace Kumaishi and Meredith Elliott retrieve zooplankton collected in a hoop net from the side deck of the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue

After the CTD is pulled in, the hoop net is carefully lowered over the side. Ship speed and the amount of cable released impact the success of this process, so there’s a great deal of coordination between the bridge, the winch operator, the deck crew, and the wet lab team. If the cable is not at the correct angle, the net will drag at a depth that doesn’t pull in the zooplankton.

Once retrieved, Point Blue Senior Scientist and Program Biologist for ACCESS Meredith Elliott and Kumaishi rinse the hoop net to direct everything captured down into a container at the bottom of the net called a cod end. The contents are dumped into a sieve and filtered. Elliott carefully rinses everything several times to make sure she gets all the biological samples.

The nets are used to measure the quantity and variety of food sources available for the wildlife being observed and counted on the flying bridge. This process will be repeated at each station on the transects completed every day.

People mill; everyone has to wait for the moment when it’s time to perform their individual part in the production. Since timing is of the essence, no one leaves until the deck ops are complete, in spite of the aroma of pulled pork and warm spices wafting from mess.

It is time for lunch, but not until the work is done.

Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Follower her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.

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