OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife

12/13/2020

Great work, Marie!

Back in January 2020, Marie Tosa, a Wildlife Sciences Ph.D. student in the College of Agricultural Sciences, returned to Corvallis after roughly two and a half years of continuous field research. Her research was conducted in Oregon State University's HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, a 16 thousand-acre long term ecological research forest situated in Oregon's Western Cascades.

The Sept. 2020 Holiday Farm Fire burned 173,000 acres in this area, 400 of which were in the Andrews Forest. Marie explained that during this event, she was concerned first and foremost for the people and families impacted, but she was also worried even more of the forest she knows so well would burn.

Marie's interest in wildlife science began in high school when she helped with data collection on a project researching bats in urban and suburban environments. Today, her Ph.D. research focuses on the food web dynamics of dense, old-growth populated ecosystems. Marie is co-advised by Associate Professor Taal Levi and U.S. Forest Service researcher Damon Lesmeister.

Marie explained, her research in the Andrews Forest is two-tiered. The umbrella tier investigates the network of organisms that live in the iconic forests of the PNW. The second tier is a more in-depth study of the western spotted skunk. She said, "[The skunks] are an understudied carnivore in the system... a lot of my project was looking at what they eat, what eats them, where they live, and how does land use and logging influence their populations." Marie dispersed over 80 camera traps throughout the forest and used up to 10 radio collars at any given time. She captured 35 individual skunks and successfully baited these elusive animals with sardines. When asked about what impact the fire might have, she said, "Some of the areas that burned were key areas for western spotted skunks, so it may take them and other carnivores some time before they return. Some carnivores may capitalize on the regeneration and regrowth."

If you're interested in more details about Marie's research and more skunk photos, check out her blog at https://maasroite.wixsite.com/skunktales

12/12/2020

College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University

College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University

Huge shoutout to all of the AgSci students for their hard work to finish out this unprecedented year! 🙌 🙌

12/02/2020

Learn more about today's event here: https://marinestudies.oregonstate.edu/future-food-sea-webinar-panel

11/21/2020

College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University

Students who are staying in town for Thanksgiving are invited to sign up to receive a FREE Thanksgiving dinner. 🍽️

Deadline for signing up is TUESDAY!

👉Sign Up: https://beav.es/oyW
👉Donate: https://itsonuscorvallis.org/

Bombs Away Cafe OSU Organic Growers Club It's On Us Corvallis

11/03/2020

Oregon Sea Grant

Oregon Sea Grant

Have your ever heard a blue whale? How about a fin whale or a humpback whale? Selene Fregosi plays recordings of these sounds and others in this webinar from Oregon Sea Grant. Selene is a postdoc in the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies, a partnership between Oregon State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

She talks about how she uses underwater microphones to record the sounds of whales and see where the animals are and how noise pollution may affect them. Selene received her master's and doctoral degrees from OSU in 2015 and 2020, respectively. She was in the OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in the College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University.

Marine Mammal Institute

11/03/2020

Oregon Sea Grant

Oregon Sea Grant

Victoria Quennessen, a doctoral student in the College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University, loves sea turtles. And now she's researching them. In this webinar, she talks about how she plans to use computer simulations to see if the population of green sea turtles off Brazil can adapt to rising beach temperatures. Vic also explains how as a master's student in the OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, she coded computer models to predict how populations of certain fish off Oregon would react under various regulations.

The daughter of French immigrants, Vic also describes how as a first-generation college student she navigated the path to higher education. Earlier this year, the National Sea Grant College Program and the NOAA Fisheries Service awarded her a three-year fellowship in marine population and ecosystem dynamics.

Graduate School - Oregon State University

10/29/2020

Tiffany Garcia and Taal Levi are working with the City of Corvallis to test the city's wastewater for the presence of COVID-19, bringing their techniques and expertise out of the lab. You can read more in the article below.

OSU researchers say the novel coronavirus is present in every region of Corvallis. They are helping to understand COVID-19 prevalence in wastewater.
OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife professors Taal Levi & Tiffany Garcia are a part of a group monitoring the wastewater system.

Story: https://beav.es/oaX

10/29/2020

Take a break from emails and Zoom to scroll through our gallery of adorable FW pets! The FW Graduate Student Association wants you to vote on the 5 pets that you think are the absolute cutest in each section. Voting closes at midnight on 10/31, so get those votes in soon! You can vote at the following link: https://beav.es/oXA

This graceful beauty is Bear, who is not in the running but is a stunning representative of old lady cats everywhere.

10/20/2020

Marine Mammal Institute

Marine Mammal Institute

Where are marine mammals in the Northern California Current? In this blog post, PhD student Dawn Barlow reflects on the recent NCC Ecosystem Survey. Check it out for stories from sea, maps, the strength of ecosystem-scale data collection, and more!

10/20/2020

Are you an OSU student, faculty, or staff member in Corvallis, Newport, or Bend? You can enroll in the TRACE-COVID-19 project which is an easy way to get tested for COVID-19 while providing vital prevalence and infection data.

To learn more visit trace.oregonstate.edu/osu

#traceosu

10/16/2020

Oregon State Ichthyology Collection

Oregon State Ichthyology Collection

Check out the 16:25 minute mark of yesterday's episode of Oregon Field Guide, featuring the ongoing restoration of Miller Lake Lamprey, the world's smallest parasitic lamprey, to its native lake. You can also see a few shots of our collection, including the first specimen of the species recovered after its presumed extinction. Kudos to Benjamin Clemens on the good press for his work!

10/15/2020

Oregon Sea Grant

👏 Congratulations to Mee-ya Monnin on receiving a Robert E. Malouf marine studies scholarship from Oregon Sea Grant. Mee-ya is a master's student in fisheries science in the College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University. She is studying the feasibility of using photos and videos to monitor the quantity, types and sizes of bottom fish that recreational fishermen catch close to Oregon's shore. She plans to collaborate with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Mee-ya earned a bachelor's in fisheries and wildlife sciences in 2014 as an undergraduate in the Honors College - Oregon State University. During that time, she spent two seasons at McMurdo Station in Antarctica studying Weddell seals.

Learn about the Malouf scholarship at bit.ly/2I1dlWb.

Graduate School - Oregon State University, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife

10/08/2020

Many thanks to OCEAN, the Oregon Coalition for Educating ANglers (https://oceaned.org/) for their generous scholarship endowment to support Fisheries and Wildlife Science undergraduates interested in in marine sport or commercial fishing. Two scholarships per year will be awarded to juniors or seniors with a 2.8 GPA or higher in Fisheries and Wildlife with an emphasis on Marine Fisheries or Marine Fishery Conservation.

The goal of this endowment is to support the future of healthy, sustainable, and productive marine fisheries. We are so pleased to receive this gift from an Oregon-based organization and support future fisheries scientists and managers!

10/02/2020

Join us right now for the second lecture in the Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology Seminar Series will be given by Carl Zimmer. His talk is titled “Can science save us from Covid?”.

Carl is a New York Times columnist who has frequently covered Covid-19. He is also an award-winning author of 13 books about science. His perspective on the current pandemic will be fascinating.

You can log on to see the seminar on Zoom at: beav.es/eecb

09/25/2020

Acclaimed author kicks off seminar on ecology, evolution and conservation biology of pandemics

What can ecology, evolution and conservation biology contribute to understanding global pandemics?

That's the question we're asking with this fall term virtual Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology Seminar Series.

Join us this afternoon at 3pm PST for a presentation and Q&A with David Quammen.

Zoom link: beav.es/eecb

View the lineup at our website: fw.oregonstate.edu/eecb

College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University Oregon State University College of Science, Oregon State University College of Forestry at Oregon State University

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Science journalist David Quammen, author of 16 books including “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic” in 2012, will give a virtual public presentation at 3 p.m. Friday to kick off the Oregon State University seminar series, “What can ecology, evolution a...

08/13/2020

Oregon Sea Grant

Grad student work isn't always sexy. Sometimes it involves fish guts. Just ask Claire Rosemond. Here she is in Newport dissecting a black rockfish as part of her research. Claire is a doctoral student in the OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.

In 2019, the NOAA Fisheries Service and the National Sea Grant College Program awarded her a fellowship to conduct her research. Claire aims to understand how oceanographic conditions affect the the reproductive capacity of black rockfish in the northeast Pacific. Learn about the fellowship at bit.ly/2ZjstHJ.

(photo by Renee Doran)

College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University

08/11/2020

Congratulations, Vic!

Congratulations to Victoria Quennessen! The National Sea Grant College Program and NOAA Fisheries Service have awarded her a three-year fellowship in marine population and ecosystem dynamics. Victoria is a master's student in the College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University. She will defend her thesis later this month.

As a doctoral student at Oregon State University, Victoria plans to use computational simulations to see if sea turtles can adapt fast enough to survive as rising beach temperatures result in fewer, and maybe not enough, males being born. Learn about the fellowship at bit.ly/2ZjstHJ.

OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Graduate School - Oregon State University

08/11/2020

Is anyone watching Shark Week? Have you learned anything new and exciting?

This Friday FW faculty Taylor Chapple will be helping to look at the predatory strategy of sleeper sharks.

Alien Sharks, 8pm Aug 14 on the Discovery Channel.

06/08/2020

Grieving and frustrated: Black scientists call out racism in the wake of police killings

Grieving and frustrated: Black scientists call out racism in the wake of police killings

An academic strike is planned for this week, alongside marches and demonstrations worldwide.

05/26/2020

Our annual graduate research symposium is going virtual!

Research Advances in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Ecology is finally upon us! Please join us this Thursday and Friday for our yearly research symposium on fisheries, wildlife, and ecology. Registration is FREE and open to all! Register here: HTTPS://BEAV.ES/4BS

Posters and talks will be presented by undergraduate and graduate students from various OSU colleges and departments on a wide variety of topics under the umbrella of fisheries, wildlife, and ecology. Please stop by and see what our OSU students are working on, rub elbows and ask questions at our networking event, take in a plenary talk given by the Integrative Biology Department's very own Dr. Dave Lytle, or hang out with us at our live auction and social hour!

A full agenda and link for registration can be found on the website.

05/08/2020

Chris Cousins, a graduate student in the Garcia lab, came in third in the OSU Grad Research Photo Contest.

A Columbia torrent salamander (Rhyacotriton kezeri) perched on a mossy, streamside log looks out over its domain, facing an uncertain future. This species of salamander is endemic to the Pacific Northwest, where it inhabits cold, fast-flowing headwater streams. Habitat loss and and alteration, along with climate change, are threatening the persistence of this species. This photograph was taken during rangewide surveys to assist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's decision to list this species by the Endangered Species act. This effort is led by OSU alumni Dr. Lindsey Thurman (USGS), and also supported by OSU faculty Dr. Tiffany Garcia, OSU Alumni Dr. Brooke Penaluna (USFS), and Dr. Dede Olson (USFS). Don't let its small size deceive you, this species plays an important role in the ecosystem it inhabits! This amphibian is active both in streams and riparian forests, making it an important link in the flow of nutrients between the two systems. Many of the streams they occupy are fishless, and as a result, salamanders are often the ecologically dominant vertebrates in these stream food webs and can have large impacts on the macroinvertebrate community.

Macroinvertebrates feed on leaf litter and other organic matter. Together, this intricate food web contributes to carbon storage and a local reduction in atmospheric CO2. OSU PhD student Christopher Cousins' research seeks to discover the ecological role that salamanders play in Pacific Northwest forests. By giving tangible ecological values to these amphibians, we can better understand what the forests would be like without them, and how the rippling effects would change our world.

04/13/2020

NAUFWP Becomes a TWS Strategic Partner | THE WILDLIFE SOCIETY

Good news for college wildlife programs, including ours! Working on a similar partnership with American Fisheries Society.

https://wildlife.org/naufwp-becomes-a-tws-strategic-partner/?utm_source=getresponse&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ewildlifer_renewal_thismonth_expires_professional_members&utm_content=This+Week%27s+eWildlifer+%26+TWS+Talks

NAUFWP Becomes a TWS Strategic Partner Posted on April 3, 2020 The National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs has become a Strategic Partner of The Wildlife Society. ©Ryan Hagerty/USFWS The National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs (NAUFWP) has becom...

03/06/2020

Help us improve our program! As alumni your insight on your experiences here in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife is valued. What did you wind up doing after earning your bachelor’s degree?

Complete our Survey of Grads for a chance to win a $50 gift card!

fw.oregonstate.edu/surveyofgrads

02/21/2020

Marine Mammal Institute

Marine Mammal Institute

MMI Associate Director Scott Baker was a member of the scientific team documenting the return of great whales to the former whaling center of South Georgia Island.

OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center
OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
College of Agricultural Sciences - Oregon State University

01/26/2020

Caleb, the current @oregonstate Bird Nerds president talking to conference goers at the #WillametteValleyBirdSymposium. ⁣
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If you're interested in a future in ornithology, Oregon State has an extensive program. You can read more about all that we offer at fw.oregonstate.edu/flock 🦉🦅🦆

01/25/2020

We have robust teaching collections housed in our department. Today a small percentage of our bird specimens are on display. Our fish, mammal, and bird collections are used in our academic courses and at outreach events like the #WillametteValleyBirdSymposium. ⁣
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Can you name the bird in the last photo? @ Oregon State University

01/25/2020

Barred owl dissection at Willamette Valley Bird Symposium

01/25/2020

Ryan Baumbusch's talk is on barred owl stomach contents and how those diet discoveries can inform conservation efforts of spotted owls. Turns out barred owls really like to eat salamanders.

We will be live streaming a barred owl dissection shortly on our page.

01/25/2020

Acoustic recordings are a useful data method that we use in many of our research projects in our department. They allow collection of large amounts of data with minimal disturbances to wildlife. ⁣
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Jill Tengeres is working on a project in Alaska using passive acoustic recordings for monitoring occupancy and abundance of Aleutian Tern colonies.

01/25/2020

According to Tyler Dungannon, his approach to his talk today is "winging it".

He is the first of six talks from our department today!

01/25/2020

Chintimini Wildlife Center live bird demonstration!

01/25/2020

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting now

We are live streaming the symposium today so if you can't be here in person you can join us on Zoom!

https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/679970459

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, confer...