Efforts to restore depressed populations of Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. are often hampered by the inability to assign population identity to individuals in an admixture. This knowledge is of particular concern in supportive breeding programs, in which misidentification of individuals to population may result in progeny of mixed heritage, which,...
"Several species of rockfish inhabit the nearshore ocean off Oregon and contribute significantly to the recreational fishery with black rockfish (Sebastes melanops) being most important. Nearshore rockfish populations are coming under increased fishing pressure with relatively little assessment due to the difficulty and expense of such an undertaking. The need...
The American Fisheries Society (AFS) recognizes the need for conservative and robust management of Pacific rockfishes because of naturally low population growth, the overfished state of many of the stocks, and complex nature of the mixed-stock fisheries (60-plus species). The AFS recommends that catch information be collected on a species-specific...
3188 Geotechnical Report, Rev. 1.
Geotechnical Resources, Rnc. (GRI) conducted a geotechnical investigation for the proposed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Building at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) on Yaquina Bay in Newport, Oregon. The NOAA site is located in the northeast portion of the HMSC...
The opportunities for expanding water supplies in Oregon coastal municipalities are becoming increasingly limited. New water quantity and quality regulations, particularly those designed to protect and rebuild salmon runs, constrain water supply options. At the same time, however, demand for water is increasing. Coastal communities continue to grow in population...
The problem of extinction in the sea has been recognized
only recently by the scientific community (Roberts and
Hawkins 1999). For the last decade, the American Fisheries
Society (AFS) has pursued an initiative to identify marine
fish stocks that may be at risk of extinction in North America
(Musick 1998;...
Continued stock declines in marine fisheries have resulted in a search for more risk-averse management approaches. In response, the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 mandates habitat protection, bs catch reduction, and stock rebuilding. These changes emphasize precaution, and imply a shift in focus from maximizing yields to minimizing ecological impacts...
"The MSC was created through the impetus of three needs. Wayne Burt of the newly formed Oceanography Department needed dock and ship support facilities for his NSF-funded research vessel on the coast. Roland Dimick of the Fisheries and Wildlife Department needed to expand his small bay research lab located at...
Larval and age-0 sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria reside in neustonic waters of the North Pacific during spring and summer. We estimated the potential impacts of elevated surface temperatures on ecological processes of growth, conversion efficiency, and behavior in early juvenile sablefish. Growth experiments tested a wide range of temperatures from 6...
Saltwater-adapted juvenile chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha exposed to aromatic and chlorinated compounds, representative of contaminants found in urban estuaries in Puget Sound, have a higher susceptibility to vibriosis than do fish exposed only to the solvent vehicle. Susceptibility to vibriosis was assessed by examining the percent cumulative mortality of the...
There are several assumptions regarding the behavior and motivations of participants in fishery management that may hinder the effectiveness of the management process. In this research, we examine whether the commercial fishing industry is a homogeneous group whose decision-making is dominated by short-term economic considerations to the detriment of long-term...
The extent of stress and eventual mortality in Pacific halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis that resulted from simulated capture by hooking or towing in a net, followed by abrupt exposure to warmer seawater temperature and air, were determined under laboratory conditions. Abrupt exposure to 16degreesC seawater and air after either method of...
In the face of dramatic declines in groundfish populations and a lack of sufficient stock assessment information, a need has arisen for new methods of assessing groundfish populations. We describe the integration of seafloor transect data gathered by a manned submersible with high-resolution sonar imagery to produce a habitat- based...
There has been a dramatic increase in jellyfish biomass over the eastern Bering Sea shelf since the early 1990s, which was previously hypothesized to have been triggered by changing climate and ocean conditions. We examine the hypothesis that the presence of these large carnivores has affected fisheries resources, either through...
The effects of anomalous oceanographic conditions on growth, abundance, spawn-date distributions, and diet of early-juvenile Pacific hake Merluccius productus were examined in nursery grounds off the coast of central California, USA. Spring collections from 2 consecutive years of El Nino conditions, 1997 and 1998, 1 year of La Nina conditions,...
The mortality of discarded bycatch is a critical problem in the management of fisheries worldwide. Little is known about the key principles involved in the mortality of discarded bycatch. These principles are best elaborated under controlled conditions in the laboratory where the actions and interactions of stressors found in fishing...
Previous studies have shown that juvenile chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha exposed in the field or the laboratory to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), an anthropogenic stressor, are immunosuppressed. It is not known whether simultaneous exposure to natural stressors can increase this immunosuppression. To examine the effects of natural and anthropogenic stressors on...
During the summer of 1994, 1996, and 1997, we conducted hydrographic and plankton surveys of the upper 70 m in the nearshore, the continental shelf, and off shelf oceanic waters off Oregon, USA. Copepod densities and biomass were estimated along 4 transects from each cruise. The on shelf copepod biomass...
The lingcod Ophiodon elongatus is a benthic marine fish commonly caught by groundfish trawlers and discarded due to low catch limits. Managers must account for the mortality of bycatch to assess population status accurately. Our objectives were to estimate the actual mortality of trawl-discarded lingcod (50- 84 cm) and describe...
Tag and recovery programs can provide valuable information on population size and exploitation rates in fishes. Passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags are ideal for use in such programs because they provide identification of individual fish and are invisible to anglers, circumventing problems with nonreporting of tags. Our objective was to...
Changes in the spatial distribution of U.S. west coast bottom-trawl effort in relation
to areas of prime habitat for rockfish Sebastes spp. were evaluated between 1992 and 2001. Prime trawlable rockfish habitat (PTRH) was defined based on the spatial distribution of high rockfish catches from logbook data for 1992–1995. Bottom-trawl...
Simultaneous visual and oceanographic surveys were conducted in the lower Bay of Fundy and in Roseway Basin of the SW Scotian Shelf during the summers of 1999 to 2001 to investigate the physical and biological oceanographic factors associated with North Atlantic right whale occurrence. Sightings of right whales were recorded...
North Atlantic right whales were instrumented with suction-cup mounted, time-depth recorders (TDR) during the summers of 2000 and 2001 to examine their diving and foraging behavior. Simultaneous observations of temperature, salinity and the vertical distribution of their principal prey, Calanus finmarchicus stage 5 copepodites (C5), were obtained alon
g each...
Fisheries models often assume that discarded undersized fish and target species will survive and contribute to future recruitment and yield. If smaller fish are more susceptible to capture stressors than larger fish, then the assumption that smaller discards would contribute to recruitment may not be true. We tested the hypothesis...
Assessments for many U.S. Pacific coast groundfish stocks have been developed using the statistical catch-at-age method known as Stock Synthesis. This study used Monte Carlo simulation and a fractional factorial experiment to evaluate the effects of input data errors and stock characteristics on bias and precision in estimates of ending...
Although the adverse impact of pathogens on salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest is often discussed and recognized, little is currently known regarding the incidence and corresponding significance of delayed disease-induced mortalities. In the study reported herein, we surveyed the presence and prevalence of selected micro- and macroparasites in out-migrant...
"Erosion is impacting a portion of the Estuary Nature Trail located adjacent to Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) facility, located on the south side of the Yaquina Bay estuary approximately one mile from the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. The HMSC Estuary Nature Trail is important...
Describing the ocean habitats used by Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha is an important step towards understanding how environmental conditions influence their population dynamics. We used data from archival tags that recorded time, temperature and pressure (depth) to define the coastal habitats used by Chinook near Oregon and California during the...
This is a summary report of preliminary recommendations for the Oregon State
University: Hatfield Marine Science Center, located in Newport, Lincoln County, Oregon
as this institution prepares to embark on the development of an earthquake and tsunami
pre-disaster mitigation plan. This report describes our preliminary recommendations,
lessons from the past,...
This is a summary report of preliminary recommendations for the Oregon State
University: Hatfield Marine Science Center, located in Newport, Lincoln County, Oregon
as this institution prepares to embark on the development of an earthquake and tsunami pre-disaster mitigation plan. This report describes our preliminary recommendations, lessons from the past,...
We tested the potential of a selective flatfish trawl to reduce bycatch of slope rockfish in the upper continental slope bottom-trawl fishery (250–500 m) on the U.S. West Coast. The trawl we tested differed from typical slope trawls in that it was a low-rise, two-seam trawl with a severely cut...
If the success of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is measured by the number of endangered species that have been recovered and delisted, then the act is not very successful. Only 15 species have been delisted because of recovery in the history of the ESA. The Borax Lake chub (Gila...
Erosion is impacting a portion of the Estuary Nature Trail located adjacent to Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) facility, located on the south side of the Yaquina Bay estuary approximately one mile from the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. The HMSC Estuary Nature Trail is important...
Unusual collections of several euphausiid, chaetognath, and copepod species help elucidate
the effects of the strong 1997/1998 El Niño off the central Oregon, USA, coast. Furcilia of Nyctiphanes simplex, a euphausiid typically found only as far north as central California, were collected in bi-weekly nearshore samples between December 1997 and...
Age-1 and age-2 Pacific halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis were exposed to a range of times in air (0-60 min) and air temperatures (10 degrees C or 16 degrees C) that simulated conditions on deck after capture to test for correspondence among responses in plasma constituents and mortality. Pacific halibut mortality generally...
The Moult Rate (MR) method has been used widely to derive stage-specific growth rates in juvenile copepods. It is the most common field-based method. Unfortunately, the equation underlying the method is wrong and, consequently, large errors in juvenile growth rate estimates are widespread. The equation derives growth from the mean...
Dramatic changes in the physical and biological conditions off Washington and Oregon, USA, have occurred since 1998, including extreme El Niño (warm) and La Niña (cool) years, high and low Columbia River flow years, a major intrusion of subarctic water, and a low oxygen event on the shelf. The occurrence...
Well-defined fronts develop at the seaward edge of riverine plumes where suspended materials and planktonic organisms are concentrated by convergent water flows. Riverine plume fronts have been hypothesized to be favorable fish habitats because they can lead to localized prey
aggregations. We examined the spatial distribution of juvenile Pacific salmonids...
Recognizing the need, opportunity, and potential for collaboration between the Hatfield Marine Science Visitor Center, Oregon Sea Grant’s Youth Marine Education and Ornamental Fish Health Programs, Oregon Coast Community College Aquarium Science Program, and the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Oregon Sea Grant convened a workgroup and funded this conceptual planning study...
The sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria is a valuable North Pacific Ocean species that, when not targeted in various commercial fisheries, is often a part of discarded bycatch. Predictions of the survival of discarded fish are dependent on understanding how a fish responds to stressful conditions. Our objective was to describe the...