Issue Fourteen: Late Night Television

NOAA TEACHER AT SEA
CATHRINE PRENOT FOX
NOAA SHIP OSCAR DYSON
JULY 24 – AUGUST 14, 2011

Personal Log:
Late night television=brain torture.  I think late night t.v. might be designed to shrink brain neurons: shopping networks, exercise shows, self help and reality programs.  Some studies have even linked watching late night t.v. to obesity and sleep deprivation.  I'd rather stab myself with a butter knife than be trapped on a couch watching a self help guru in the middle of the night...  ...On the Oscar Dyson, though?  You couldn't drag me away from the 4:30 a.m. screen, as it shows a live feed of the floor of the ocean 100 meters below us.

The camera drops were just one part of the night-time research aboard the Oscar Dyson.  Dr. Jodi Pirtle, a post doctoral research associate at the University of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, utilized her lab hours to explore and document "untrawlable" portions of our survey area.  Rocky bottoms, pinnacles, shelves... ...all make it difficult to drop a net down to get an accurate reading of groundfish diversity and abundance without destroying the net.

Throughout the night the ship maneuvers tight turns to provide high resolution acoustic signals of the bottom.  My fellow Teacher at Sea, Staci DeSchryver, describes the ship's movements as akin to "lawn mowing."  My father, watching the NOAA ship tracker online after one of these sessions, asked if the captain had had one too many cocktails (absolutely not, by the way).  These turns, in addition to making me sleep like a baby, provide an overlapping and highly accurate map of the ocean floor.  Below is a multibeam image of a seamount (underwater mountain) mapped during the 2004 Gulf of Alaska Seamount Expedition.  

"In this multibeam image of Ely Seamount, the caldera (aka the Crater of Doom) is visible at the apex of the seamount." Image courtesy of Jason Chaytor, NOAA

Adventures in a Blue World.  Issue 14.  Cathrine Prenot Fox, 2011.

After a night of intensive napping, I mean mapping, I go on shift at 4am.  I know I have mentioned this before, but I have the best job in the world: my first task in the morning is helping with camera deployment.  I am sure you will agree after checking out Issue 14 that several camera drops equal the best Late Night T.V. I have ever seen (Cartoon citations 1 and 2). 

Until our next adventure,
Cat

Retrieving the camera. Snakehead.

Not to be redundant, but the best job ever. 

Issue Thirteen: Walleye Pollock Status Page

NOAA TEACHER AT SEA
CATHRINE PRENOT FOX
NOAA SHIP OSCAR DYSON
JULY 24 – AUGUST 14, 2011

Personal Log:
I have not always had the best morals when it came to eating seafood.  I discovered the joys of sushi in San Francisco after I graduated college.  There was one place that I would frequent so often that the sushi chefs would would create something for me when I walked through the door.  I later learned from Ruth Reichl in her book Garlic and Sapphires that the phrase I was looking for was "Omakase." Literally: I am in your hands.  In their capable hands I tried unagi (eel), hon maguro (bluefin tuna), and hamachi (yellowtail) for the first time.  And I fell in love.

A few years later, a friend mentioned to me that I might want to moderate my adoration of some fish.  Never one to take someone else's word, I did my own research.  I read, with growing horror, that my delicious eel farms were not sustainable, and that bluefin tuna was declining worldwide.  Evidently, there were so many others that shared my love of the cool simple taste of hon maguro that we were loving these and other species to death.  I know, you probably don't want to take my word for it.  Do your own research and then come back: FishWatch and SeaFoodWatch.

Back?  Did you see that Yellowfin tuna are being sustainably harvested?  Yes, me too.  One order of hamachi sashimi, please.   

Adventures in a Blue World.  Issue 13.  Cathrine Prenot Fox, 2011.

What is my point with all of this?  I want to show you what data are used to make these determinations about sustainability.  I assure you, it is not random or haphazard.  In fact, the purpose of my time in Alaska was to provide data to fisheries managers (composed of teams of fishermen, scientists, and officials) to let them make educated decisions on the health of walleye pollock populations in the Gulf of Alaska.  What data do we collect?  How do we know what the fish are doing, and how many there are?  It isn't an easy job... there is no Walleye Pollock Facebook Status Page that you can just check... (Cartoon citations 1, 2, and 3).  You have to get dirty and do some real science. 

Until our next adventure, Cat

Walleye Pollock age classes.

p.s. Although my "real job" has severely impacted the amount of time I have to cartoon, I am still working on at least two more (and up to seven, if I find a way to get a hold of a Time-Turner like Hermione Granger) cartoons.  Thank you for being patient!