Westcott Bay Shellfish Company:

Those who didn’t need to start their research project piled into the vans for a trip to Westcott Bay Shellfish. As the name implies, they grow shellfish, mainly Pacific Oysters but also a few types of clams, mussels, and even Olympia Oysters. Today, we got a tour of the facility from Chaz who told us all about the history of the Westcott Bay Shellfish Company. We learned the company started farming oysters in the late 70s. Chaz also told us about how oyster farming isn’t the easiest as it involves a lot of strategic planning. Growing these oysters is very difficult due to the high mortality rate. To account for this, Chaz and his team change the “cages” of the oysters every six months, checking sizes and overall health. Chaz also discussed how harmful algal blooms (HABs) are monitored. Every week, the company sends in mussels for science to test for neurotoxins and bacteria. Luckily, the Westcott Bay Shellfish Company hasn’t had to shut down the company due to HABs, as the bay is pretty protected.  After the discussion, Chaz continued his tour and showed us the equipment that is used to collect and store the shellfish. At the end of the tour, we were able to check out the same and larger oysters that were gonna be shucked today! We are extremely grateful to the Westcott Bay Shellfish Company for allowing us to tour their establishment and telling us the intricacies of shellfish farming. 

Westcott Bay Shellfish Company: https://www.westcottbayshellfish.com/

-Photo credits to Soren

Cattle Point:

To complete their research projects, many people traveled to different parts of the island to collect data and specimens. Today, Sam and Gretchen needed their respective data from Cattle Point: Sam searched for red sponge nudibranchs, while Gretchen set out to complete a survey on mossy chitons and the algae surrounding them. Unfortunately, the trip was unsuccessful, as Sam only found 2 of his 8 needed nudibranchs. Thankfully, Gretchen made some ground on her research on mossy chitons as she managed to find 10 chitons in her survey of the intertidal zone.

Eagle Cove: 

Cassandra and Jeff drove the gang over to Eagle Cove, where we all bathed in the sun and played in the water. Matt and Sid cut up Bull Kelp to create horns and played notes together, and even attracted a couple of folks asking how to do it. Max, Nina, and Scarlett took a paddleboard out into the water and had some fun, and Sam, Katie, and Ansuya had a blast reading. When it was time to head out, everyone gathered their stuff and made it back up the big hill. Everyone was sad to leave their Bullhorns and reading perches, but we all piled back into the vans to meet Finlee, Caleb, and Gretchen back at home, as they had been hard at work at FHL.

-Photo credits to Morgan, in the middle is Cara, and off to the right is Soren jumping into the waves

-Photo credits to Morgan, in the picture is Cara playing in the sand

Trivia: 

The group ended the night with an exhilarating trivia game at JP’s. We had to split up into three teams because we were too big of a group: the Chill Pickles (Caleb, Nina, Soren, Ben, Katie, Gretchen, and Finlee), HABs (Scarlett, Sam, Ansuya, Max, Flora, and Tatum), and Brevetoxins (Sid, Ian, Matt, Tyler, Morgan, Claudia, Cassandra, and Cara) We even got our own category! The science directors, Adam, Emma, and Riley banded together to create a super-team, and in the end, Adam led his team to victory with a second-place tiebreaker, a quick bowling match. 

-Photo credits to Max, in the picture is Adam about to lead his team the Chase Fan Club to the victory of second place

^ A conglomerate of eager researchers. Photo by Katie.

By Katie Chin, Sam Feit, Max Liu, Scarlett Thornton

The day began with a pleasantly late start and a quiet (although rejuvenating) breakfast, allowing us to slumber through the long night, and recover after yesterday’s laborious schedule.

After filling our bellies with food, we set off to 4th of July Beach to observe the diverse and magnificent intertidal seagrass habitat. With our captains Riley and Emma at the wheel, we arrived at our destination with due diligence and pace.

^ Students on their way down to the beach. Photo by Scarlett.

We met Dr. Olivia Graham, an eelgrass extraordinaire who has been researching the vital organism for years. Accompanying her was Michiko the dog, her loyal companion and an invaluable assistant in our ventures. Our time with Dr. Graham began with reading up on different aspects of eelgrass, such as biology, importance, and need for conservation.

^ Esteemed Shih Tzu researcher Michiko. Photo by Katie.

After our reading and subsequent group discussion, we headed down to the beach to explore the low tide, and the newly exposed eelgrass meadow. Dr. Graham explained that once, the meadow was so dense you could barely take a step without landing on some eelgrass. But now, it was easy to see the swaths of eelgrass that had been wiped out by the seagrass wasting disease–which forms the basis for many of Dr. Graham’s studies.

Following twenty minutes of exploration, we were joined by Dr. Becca Maher–a postdoctoral fellow at Friday Harbor Labs–and Angie, an undergraduate spending her summer at the labs. They enlisted our aid in collecting eelgrass specimens for Angie’s project, which involved comparing the various microbiomes found on healthy eelgrass. While the eelgrass itself was fairly abundant, finding healthy, hearty leaves was difficult: we were limited only to selecting the second rank leaf of the entire plant, and the vast majority of them were stricken by various ailments, ranging from heat damage to wasting disease. But despite our struggles, we ended up collecting 30 samples with the help of Dr. Graham, Dr. Maher, Angie, Emma, Riley, and most importantly, Michiko.

^ Students hard at work gathering eelgrass samples. Photo by Katie.

After bidding our farewells to the FHL researchers, we headed back to the dorms for lunch and some work time for our research projects. Some members of our cohort split off: Sam and Tyler collected samples at Cattle Point; Ansuya, Ben, Max, Gretchen, and Caleb visited the Friday Harbor Labs to meet with scientists and collect data. Everyone else remained at the dorm, some in the lab beginning preliminary work, and others back in the common space, diligently plugging away at their research.

And soon this evening, we’ll have the pleasure of dining with Shauna Barrows, a field steward with the San Juan County Conservation Land Bank! We look forward to hearing her story on how she got involved with the San Juans, and her approach to conservation, forestry, restoration, and the Salish Sea as a whole.

Kindly recounted by: Finlee Rice, Tatum Bunting, and Caleb Zulauf

This morning, Co-Science Director Adam Rogowski gifted us with a much-needed late start. After relishing in a chance to sleep in, we enjoyed a hot breakfast of waffles, eggs, sausage, bacon, and fruit.

Soon, the chaos of getting ready for the day ahead interrupted our slow morning as people slathered on sunscreen and pulled on boots. 

Adam arrived early this morning, and upon seeing his outfit, Caleb, Finlee, and Gretchen decided that in honor of all that Adam has done for us, the only logical way to share our appreciation would be to dress exactly like him. 

Once everyone was adequately prepared, we ventured off to Argyle Lagoon for a clam survey. 

After Adam humbled us all by handing out survey worksheets for third graders, we quickly proved our maturity by getting thoroughly stuck in the loose silty mud. We may have been handed an elementary school worksheet, but Adam and Emma worked to create a college-level discussion about the role of invasive species in the ecosystem, exploring how the data we collected will add to a decades-long survey of clams in Argyle lagoon. By the end of the morning, we even left with a Tupperware full of invasive varnish clams!

The rest of the day was mostly quiet. We all worked through our projects, asking Adam and Emma for help and encouragement. Over the past two days of more devoted project work time, more and more people are beginning to settle into and develop their ideas. So far, we have projects focusing on everything from limpets and lugworms to sea hares and sand dollar larvae. 

After picking Adam and Emma’s brain for any and all information we could get out of them, Adam took a few of us program members to FHL to look at some of the resources available to us. We took a look at the tide tables being provided to us by Dr. Billie Swalla, and talked to Michelle Herko about CRISPR. Unfortunately, some of the scientists we were hoping to run into were not available because they were preparing costumes for the “Invertebrate Ball”, a prestigious gala that happens once a year where all of the UW FHL students dress up as invertebrates for a night of fun. However, Adam decided that due to the fact that the ball serves alcohol, it would be inappropriate for 19 highschoolers to be present (some of us might just sit outside and look sad until someone lets us in though).

Tonight, we are lucky enough to be joined by Dr. Olivia Graham, an accomplished marine disease ecologist, Postdoctoral Research Associate at Cornell University, and a fellow at Friday Harbor this summer. We will look forward to discussing her current work on seagrass wasting disease. To learn more about her past work at FHL, check out this Tide Bite.

(Written by Matt, Ben, Claudia, and Nina)  

Photo by Sam 

We left the dorms at 8:00 AM and soon arrived at False Bay to meet and aid three graduate students from Dr. Emily Carrington’s Ecological Biomechanics class: Alyssa Giedd, Jenny Duncan, and Frankie Hedge. 

Each of these researchers focused on different topics. Alyssa Giedd, a talented mechanical engineer, was looking at the fascinating legs of polychaete worms in the design of worm-shaped robots. Jenny Duncan was our only non-Annelid researcher focusing on ghost, and mud shrimp and how they interacted with the sediment of their habitat. Frankie Hedge had us collect bloodworms. She was planning to test how worms affect the sediment that passes through their digestive tract. Working with these researchers was an incredible experience. 

The blood worms have a bite that is comparable to a bee sting, so we had to be especially careful when identifying them and holding them in our hands before dropping them in the holding containers. Thankfully, no one was bitten, and after around two hours of looking for invertebrates, we found enough worms for Frankie to run two more trials and enough polychaete worms so that Alyssa could study their movements. Following our time digging at False Bay, we returned to the dorms for lunch. 

Polychaete Worm 

Labs and Projects 

After lunch, a few students headed off to the Friday Harbor Labs to meet with scientists and hone their project ideas. Caleb, Finlee, Ansuya, and Gretchen assisted Frankie Hedge in identifying the worms collected in the morning. Although Frankie was focusing on blood worms, polychaete worms, lug worms, and various other species were also identified. Ansuya and Flora met with Dr. Sandy Wyllie-Echeverria, a specialist in seagrass conservation, to brainstorm ideas for their projects.  

Nina accompanied Dr. Mike Nishizaki, a professor at Carleton College who specializes in research on intertidal organisms, and a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student, Sophie Elam, to Cattle Point to assist with data collection of mussels. They recorded the temperature of the mussels from the low, mid, and high tide lines, observing the percentage of mussels that were open. The data will contribute to a project that is examining the effects of temperature on mussels and the mechanisms the mussels use to regulate their temperature at different tides and times of day.  

Other students branched off to help Dr. Amy Cook with her project on Pidgeon Guillemots. A specialist in animal behavior, Dr. Cook is observing Pigeon Guillemot nesting habits due to urbanization. Katie and Tatum learned about Dr. Cook’s process in analyzing animal behavior and spent time observing a local nest.  

photo by Claudia 

Hike: 

The rest of us stayed back and did some brainstorming on our projects, followed by a hike up Young Hill. Riley compared the hill’s ecosystem to that of others we have seen throughout the island; admirably, the hill was covered in oaks, native to the San Juans. We learned about how spacing between trees keeps the forest healthy by leaving room for growth and shrubbery. When we reached the top, we were greeted by a charming view and a flock of turkey vultures.

 Photo by Riley 

Caterpillar! (Photo by Claudia) 

Dinner: 

We dined with Olivia Carpenter and Olivia Trahan from Soundwatch, an organization dedicated to reducing vessel disturbance of marine wildlife. Founded by the San Juan Whale Museum in 1993, Soundwatch collects data on marine vessels that frequent the Salish Sea and their effects on local marine wildlife, especially Southern Resident Killer Whales.  

The welcome team prepared for dinner by researching Soundwatch and their work and setting the table. They tackled the challenge of deciding where everyone will sit by drawing a diagram on the whiteboard.  

Morgan and Ian draw the layout of the table. (Photo by Caroline) 

The first thing we did today was to begin looking at the final result of our research projects. We examined many posters from past years and evaluated their strengths and weaknesses. We ended up making a list of all of the things that we had to avoid as well as parts that we did want to include. 

Today was the 4th of July so we were privileged to watch the parade. It was a great experience to learn about all the organizations active on the island like the Suroptomists, Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, and the Lions Club. There were also many fun floats that were assembled by determined community members. 

Image taken by Caroline

Image taken by Caroline

Image from https://www.visitsanjuans.com/10-fun-things-to-do-in-friday-harbor

After the parade, we all went to the pig war picnic. The Pig War is a historical event that occurred on San Juan Island in the late 1850s where tensions between settlers due to a border dispute culminated in an American settler shooting a British settler’s pig. As the situation continued to escalate the British and American armies were called to the island where they set up camp on different sides of the island. However, due to negotiations, no blood was ever spilled, and the only casualty of the pig war was the initial pig. 

Next, we headed down to Jackson Beach for some fun in the sun. We lounged around the beach, took a few freezing dips in the water, and played volleyball in the blazingly hot sand pit.

Photo by Nina

Finally, we went down to the docks to watch the fireworks. Although we discussed the negative environmental effects of such a display (air and noise pollution), we all agreed it was a fabulous show.

Discussion with Dr. Amy Cook:

Last night, Dr. Amy Cook graciously came over to join us for dinner and to give an informative lecture. In her lecture, she highlighted the importance of the scientific method and taught us how to apply strong inference or the hypothetico-deductive method. This method is a way to avoid falling into various biases in your scientific experiments like anchoring or IKEA bias. Despite the topic being less interesting than those on living organisms, the knowledge of applying strong inference is vital to successful research and will follow us for the remainder of our lives. She has a beautiful website that you can visit here: https://www.evergreen.edu/directory/amy-cook

Cattle Point with Dr. Amy Cook:

We started the day with a trip to Cattle Point where we met up with Dr. Amy Cook and took part in an exercise on pattern recognition and strong inference from our lecture with Dr. Cook the night before. Dr. Cook was very helpful and engaging with our ideas and encouraged further exploration of our interests. We all split into groups and made our way down to the beach, looking for ideas of patterns and relating hypotheses. Most of the groups wandered into the rocky intertidal zone and came up with very detailed hypotheses relating to the patterns they found. Caleb found a fully grown male red rock crab with a missing pincer in one of the deeper tide pools on the beach. We also ran into a family of five red foxes who made working around them very interesting.

The Foxes at Cattle Point:

During our stay at Cattle Point, we were approached by a lone red fox along the coast. It seemed very comfortable around humans, likely due to associating humans with food, and got within a few feet of a couple of individuals. Suddenly, out of nowhere, another two red foxes descend gracefully from the cliffside, joining the lone fox. They run around the intertidal zone, playing and tackling each other until another pair of red foxes appear from the bushes, bringing the total count of foxes frolicking around to five. While watching the group of foxes, we wondered why a group of five foxes would travel together, as they are not known as pack animals. Our resident animal behavior specialist, Dr. Amy Cook, hypothesized that either it was a mating pair and their three pups or a mother-daughter pair co-raising their pups together. Alas, the truth will elude us as the red foxes escape back into the woods to live out their lives in peace.

Garry Oak Restoration:

After a quick lunch of sandwiches at the dorms, we headed out to the island’s northwest side to help restore Garry Oaks in a protected forest. Why do we need to help these trees, and why are they important, you ask? Garry Oaks are an integral part of the San Juan ecosystem. This is because many other types of creatures rely on them for different phases of their life, and if we get rid of Garry Oaks, we destroy the habitats of hundreds of creatures in those forests. We spent a couple of hours using chicken fence to create a cage for Garry Oaks that would help protect them from deer. Caleb and Sid spent time hammering in rebar to keep the cages in place, and the rest of our group was very helpful with identifying Garry Oak saplings, making the cages, and placing them on the rebar. We learned much about forest ecology from Ben Halloway, a San Juan Land Steward who oversaw our restoration work. He talked about the thinning and self-thinning of trees and how we must cut down trees to help others grow. Riley gave us a great analogy- if there are too many straws in one cup, none of them get enough water.

FHL Seminar:

For the final learning lesson of the night, we went to the Friday Harbor labs. There we sat in on a lecture about turbulence and how it affects microscopic organisms which was presented by Dr. Mimi Koehl. The whole presentation was about a type of sea slug and how they get to the right parts of the reef. The theory was focused on the odors that the corals produce that attract the sea slug larvae to swim out the sea current to get to the coral reefs. We learned that Dr. Koehl’s team discovered that sea slugs aren’t fully attracted to the reef by the odor of the corals but by the idea of environmental cues causing an on-off effect. You can vist Dr. Koehls website for more information on her research: https://ib.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/koehlm 

Blog was re-written and added links to the mentioned scientists websites on July 7th, 2024

Written by Katie Chin, Sam Feit, Max Liu, Scarlett Thornton

We started off the day with an early morning to False Bay to catch the low tide. Despite the perilous sinking sands, we managed to traverse the soft sediment environment. With the guidance of our courageous scientific director Adam, we set off to find lugworms, important detritivores who digest sand, ridding it of bacteria and other organic matter. In order to find these worms, we searched for their spiral-shaped fecal casings and dug underneath. Using quadrats, we determined the density of the worms and their casings.

We met future doctor Frankie Hedge, who is surveying sediment density to inform her study on blood worm density and preferred conditions.

The next part of our day, after a sandwich lunch, was the Friday Harbor Lab Preserve tour. Guided by the most knowledgeable Justin Santiago, we took a fascinating nature hike through the preserve, learning about the incredible Douglas Firs and snacking on some salmonberries. As we walked, the incessant but interesting sounds of different birds filled the soundscape, many of which were identified by bird expert Justin. We learned about interesting indigenous practices for maintaining a healthy forest, as well as the scientists’ goals for the forest in the future. The hike was a rare terrestrial exploration for us marine folk, but both terrestrial and aquatic environments affect each other.

Lastly, we visited the Friday Harbor Labs to purchase some FHL merchandise.

This evening we are looking forward to welcoming Dr. Amy Cook for dinner and a presentation. She studies animal behavior and conservation biology, among other things.

Kindly recounted by: Finlee Rice, Tatum Bunting, and Caleb Zulauf

We all rolled out of bed this morning, feeling refreshed from the night of rest following our kayaking trip. SOME ate breakfast while others slept in as we waited for the first post-sea-kayaking meeting with a scientist. Dr. Becca Guenther an accomplished scientist, professor, artist, and overqualified hot tub fixer upper with a Ph.D in Coraline Algae, gave an insightful lecture touching on the life cycles of algae, their uses, what qualifies an algae, and the polyphyletic nature of algae. She also made it amply clear that algae is already plural, and that “algaes” is grammatically incorrect.

Once our interest in seaweeds and algae was appropriately piqued, we ventured back to the increasingly familiar Friday Harbor Labs. Armed with buckets and shovels, we spread out along the docks to collect algae and seaweed samples for pressings. Tires, leveraged onto the dock with the ends of shovels, proved treasure troves for interesting specimens of seaweed (and a few well-dressed kelp crabs, sea squirts, and sponges). After a few water fights with rockweed vesicles and a bull kelp horn solo (courtesy of Sid), we lugged our overflowing buckets back to Spring Street.

Once back at the science rooms, we started by setting up our seaweed presses in which we carefully arranged different seaweeds. Some of us made pictures while others simply arranged them in a pattern. From there we layered them between cardboard and blotting paper and placed them in a press. In a few days we are going to remove our pieces of art and observe how they have changed with time and pressure. After clamping our press down we got going on making cyanotypes. We took previously pressed and dried algae and placed them on photoreactive pieces of paper, left them in the sun to photoreact, and finally washed them in water and a diluted H₂O₂ solution and let them dry. All this work resulted in vibrant blue backgrounds with the white negative space of algal specimens.

06/27: Kayaking out

We paddled out to Stuart Island for a four day camping trip.

Caleb and Nina on the dock at Stuart Island.

06/28: Hike to Turn Point

— Taken by Guide Gretchen

Group hike up to Turn Point Lighthouse on Stuart Island

Lunch at Turn Point Lighthouse

06/29: Day kayak trip or hike

— Taken by Soren Hecimovich

Some of the group took a day paddle along Stuart Island to explore the waters and marine life including Porifera and harbor seals.

06/30: Kayaking back

The group kayaked across the channel between Stuart Island and San Juan Island early to avoid bad winds coming in. We left at 8:30 and arrived at Friday Harbor around 11:30. Afterwards, the group crashed out at the dorms and watched “The Boys in the Boat” and various other television programs.

Pictures of everything we’ve been up to so far!

Day 2, June 24th

Photo Taken by Finlee

One of the first activities we partook in was a field trip to the Whale Museum. There we learned about baleen, the precarious situation of the San Juan resident orca whales, and more. It was a great experience to kick off the program. 

Photo by Finlee

A photo of Adam. One of the amazing science directors for Salish Seas. He has a wide range of knowledge and is always ready to answer all of our questions! In this photo, he is posing underneath a whale skeleton in the whale museum. 

Taken by Finlee

A picture of Caleb holding a sea cucumber, one of the many creatures featured on the intertidal bingo. One of the best parts of this trip was the opportunity to see creatures that many of us had never seen before. 

Taken by Finlee

After we went to the whale museum, we drove to Dead Man Cove. We went to the intertidal zone where we played intertidal bingo where we tried to find everything from cnidarians to kelp crabs. 

Taken by Morgan

This is a photo of some of the girls and boys taking a very cold and daring dip into the ocean after dinner to cool off and have fun

Day 3, June 25th 

Picture taken by Morgan

On our second full day, we travelled to Cattle Point Beach. The water was calm and the sun was shining at full force. We were ready to search for and ID crab moults!

Picture taken by Morgan

This photo of the slime of the students having fun eating lunch and chilling out while conducting some research at the tide pools on the west side of the island yesterday.

Picture taken by Soren

This picture was taken of a plumose anemone at the beach directly below the lighthouse. While we were searching for crab moults we also found several other creatures like sea stars and anemones!

We also met with Professor Billie Swalla over dinner where she talked about her work with evolutionary biology and what she did in that field. You can check out her biography here: 

Day 4, June 26th

After our now-daily morning walk, the group headed back to the Whale Museum. Under the guidance of marine mammal extraordinaire Tracie, we assembled the skeleton of a steller sea lion and attempted to determine the cause of death. Finlee was correct with the diagnosis of blunt force trauma from orcas! We also discovered that the sea lion had been shot in the mouth, but the injury was not fatal, as there was evidence of healing and wear on the damaged tooth.

Picture taken by Soren

We returned to the dorms to discuss and prepare for the upcoming four-day kayaking trip and then promptly departed to catch low tide at Deadman’s Bay. At the beach, we formed human chains to bail out a waist-deep tidepool for (future doctor) Meg Vandenberg, hoping to find armoured poachers. (https://cascadiaresearch.org/intern/meg-vandenberg/). Although we didn’t find the armoured fish, we did catch a variety of gunnels which were transported back to Friday Harbor Labs, identified, and sorted by species.

Picture taken by Katie

Picture by Morgan

Of the students participating in the tide pool draining, none worked harder than Finlee, Tatum, and Soren, catching the slippery Gunnels. 

Picture by Morgan

We worked hard to empty the water of the tide pools to find gunnels and other fish. It was hard work, but it was a great bonding experience!

A highlight of our time at the beach was the orcas passing by. We even spotted a playful juvenile breaching!

Picture taken by Katie

In the evening, we ventured back to the labs to attend a seminar by Dr. Spencer Fire about harmful algal blooms and their effects on marine mammals. We learned about three major biotoxins– domoic acid, brevetoxin, and saxitoxin– and the symptoms exhibited by marine mammals like sea lions after acute exposure. These include reproductive failure and a loss of fear of humans.(https://firelabfit.weebly.com/)