Photo: Volunteers assist in the early morning light with an annual mussel bed survey at the Otter Rock Marine Reserve.
This month our staff continued field work efforts for several projects:
Otter Rock: Intertidal mussel bed surveys were completed during this month’s minus-tides. This monitoring helps our Oregon State University collaborators track any shifts in mussel bed cover that may have occurred after the outbreak of sea star wasting syndrome.
Otter Rock & Redfish Rocks: We completed our SMURF (Standardized Monitoring Units for the Recruitment of Fishes) surveys this month to study juvenile fish settlement in the nearshore environment. We collaborate with Oregon State University, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and South Coast Tours (our newest collaborator out of Port Orford) to accomplish this valuable work.