Her teaching interests will focus on immune defenses of marine animals and biotechnology techniques. We look forward to welcoming her as next year's Visiting Scientist. While this is a long-term project, work has already been completed on the shared journal collection. As a result, several new subscriptions, both print and electronic, have been added. Since 1997, we have trained 44 enthusiastic volunteers in sealife identification and sampling techniques for monthly surveys of beachcast organisms.
Volunteers work in pairs on three mile sections of beach.
Related, more detailed projects, have also been completed to assess the appropriate sampling frequency and importance of tidal height for our surveys. So far, there have already been short term returns in resource management and public education. Our most significant contribution was detecting large mortality events for Common Murres in southern Monterey Bay. These were correlated with an increase in the set gillnet fishery for halibut, where by-catch in the nets may include birds, porpoises and sea otters. The data were used by the National Marine Fisheries Service to argue for an Observer Program, where observers are placed on fishing boats to directly assess by-catch.