Current Research Blogs
Maren's Blog
Maren Duffy, undergraduate student
1 Jun 2025
Hello!
The quarter is coming to a close and things are wrapping up, both in the lab, school and in Bellingham! I am currently working to finish data analysis with Haley, as well as working on the outline of the paper for our research. I am additionally finishing up my projects in Algae lab, creating a herbarium, local algae surveys and a presentation on algae ecology. Along with this school work, I am packing up all my things to make the drive back home after I graduate. My job as a marine mammal tech for CEMML was cut in half for a short while, because of funding concerns, but they recently told me I am able to work the full six months. I plan to start work on June 23rd, after making the road trip from Bellingham to Anchorage. I am very glad the funding worked out to work the full season, and the team seems great! I am excited to start getting to know the local Anchorage marine mammals (belugas/harbor porpoise) and meet the team I’ll be working with for the season.
Best,
Maren
Rachel's Blog
Rachel Strober, undergraduate student
1 June 2025
Hi everyone,
What an eventful month it's been! I can’t believe how fast this quarter has been flying by, and that this is the last blog post before summer! I have been enjoying as much sun as I can this quarter, and have had many boat trips to take advantage of it. For my ocean instrumentation class, we were able to successfully map eelgrass beds in Strawberry Bay using a multibeam echosounder! This is a project some classmates and I have been developing all quarter, and it has been super fun to be able to fully carry out the research. Additionally, we had the NWSSMM conference early this month, and it was such a success! It was so awesome to hear about peoples projects from various schools and companies, as well as our own students in the lab. It took a lot of collaboration and group planning, but it felt so worth it once the day of the conference came. I am so happy our lab had the opportunity to host the conference this year as it truly brought us all closer together. Another event that occurred this month was Scholars Week. I presented my research at the poster session, which was a very unique and educating experience as well. It was fun to explain my research to a wide variety of audience members, and the atmosphere at the poster session was a very special one to be a part of as it was my first time presenting in a larger room with lots of people!
As far as my project is going, we are still testing the 16S primers for specificity as an internal positive control. After running the initial PCR, we found that the primers were detecting species other than our targets, so we are now modifying our parameters and trying various new things to try to make them more specific! In other news, the Chinook smolt were released from the hatchery recently, so it’s been an exciting time at both Whatcom Creek and log pond. As the smolt project finishes up, I am excited to see what Mallory and Camryn are able to find with all the data collected!
I hope you all have a great end to the quarter!
See you in summer,
Rachel
Zoe's Blog
Zoe Hosford, graduate student
1 June 2025
Hi everyone
Happy last few weeks of the quarter! It’s kind of crazy to think that my first year as a graduate student is quickly coming to a close. It feels like yesterday I was just driving cross-country with my dad, with my car filled to the brim with all my belongings.
This month has been full of data wrangling, presentations, teaching, and so much more. I did my research presentation for one of my graduate classes, which I overall think went really well. People had some inquisitive questions that have led me down some different trains of thought on my project, though many outside the scope of my project. I also had some really great meetings with Casey @ WDFW, and Alexis @ The Whale Museum to discuss data issues, and some best practices for wrangling as they know a lot more information about each data set. This info should help streamline some of the wrangling I am currently exploring. And one last exciting piece of research news – I am officially on the hunt for undergrad help. I reached out to the lab this past week and have gotten a LOT of interest… which is slightly stressful in itself. I want to include as many people as possible but likely don’t have enough bandwidth or work to include everyone :(. But this month isn’t full of all good research news – there was also some bad. I received notification that I did not receive the North Pacific Research Board Graduate Student Award that I applied for. This is definitely disappointing, but just a bump along the road of research!
My third quarter of teaching is wrapping up very quickly, my students are getting ready to do their final research presentations. And my courses are quickly wrapping up. I have learned a lot of statistics and coding in the last 9 months, and I am immensely grateful, even though it is still slightly overwhelming every week. I also had the chance to travel to Maine last week to meet my new nephew, Landon! Living across the country, it feels like I miss a lot, so I’m glad I got to go visit.
The summer is quickly approaching, which means it’s almost research work time – I can’t wait to see what it looks like!
Till next month,
Zoe
Dawson's Blog
Dawson Little, graduate student
1 June 2025
Hi y'all,
May has been a month of continued troubleshooting, unexpected opportunities, and exciting outreach. On the research side, I’ve been working closely with fellow lab members Ellie and Dietmar to keep troubleshooting the molecular side of my project, particularly the extraction and sex identification protocols for river otter scat. Progress has been steady, and we’re refining our approach with each round of testing.
I also had the chance to present my work at Western’s Scholars' Week in a three minute thesis talk. It was a fast paced but rewarding format that pushed me to break my project down to its core in a short amount of time. Beyond the presentation itself, it was a great way to connect with other researchers across campus and learn about exciting projects happening right here at WWU that I might not have heard about otherwise.
Outside the lab, I’ve had a couple of exciting outreach opportunities come my way. I was honored to be approached by the university about featuring my research in a story for the school’s magazines. This is going to include a field visit/interview on the Makah Tribe reservation which should be a fun opportunity. I was also humbled to be approached by the conservation manager at the Oregon Zoo, who reached out about doing a story on my research into river otters and invasive European green crab. It was a really cool connection to make and an exciting chance to share the work more broadly.
This month I also had the opportunity to work alongside a scent detection dog crew that’s exploring the use of trained dogs as an early detection tool for European green crab. It was a truly amazing experience to witness firsthand watching the dogs work and seeing the potential for this method to support future management efforts was an incredible experience.
I also received word that I’ve been awarded $4000 through the university from the June and Charles Ross Scholarship Fund to support my research. That was fantastic news and a big relief as I continue lining up supplies and lab work for the rest of the project. I’m also waiting to hear back on a few more funding applications and keeping my fingers crossed.
As spring quarter wraps up, I’ve also started the process of moving from Bellingham back out to the reservation to fulfill my job responsibilities while continuing my research. That includes gearing up for another summer of tromping around otter latrines in search of scat which I’m honestly very excited about. All in all, it’s been another reminder that while research is often a long and winding process, it opens the door to meaningful and unforeseen connections.
Best,
Dawson
Ellie's Blog
Ellie Taylor, undergraduate student
1 June 2025
Hello!
I can’t believe summer is just around the corner, I hope everyone’s been enjoying the spring sun and is feeling ready for finals!
May has been filled with research presentations, poster sessions, smolt observations, and experimenting with new protocols in the lab. We hosted the NWSSMM meeting and got to learn about everyone’s research that’s being conducted in our area. It was great to get input on my study from professionals in the same field and see what students in a similar position as me are doing at other universities. I also participated in Scholar’s Week this year, it was so exciting to see the work that my peers have been working on and share my project.
This month I spent a lot of time in the lab with Dawson and Dietmar workshopping our protocols for qPCR and DNA extractions. After a few semi-conclusive qPCR runs, we decided to order new primers because it’s likely ours weren’t binding properly. I’m hopeful these will come in soon, so we get to test them before everyone’s summer schedule kicks in. We’re also trying to figure out how to get higher concentrations of DNA from our poo-thenol (scat sample in ethanol) before beginning the extraction process. Hoping to have some time within my hectic summer schedule to get in the lab and start finalizing some protocols!
Best,
Ellie
Haley's Blog
Haley Recob, undergraduate student
1 June 2025
Hi all,
Time has truly flown by as graduation is right around the corner! I have been working hard to get everything done in time before the end of my last quarter.
This past month has been full of presentations, data organization, and early morning/late evening observations. The NWSSMM conference took place at the beginning of May, and it all went really well! Around 40 people ended up attending and we got to learn about all the exciting marine mammal research projects that the Northwest students have been studying. Dr. Cindy Elliser and Dr. Erin D’Agnese also gave inspiring keynote speeches. Maren and I were able to present our poster (photo below). We reflected on our proposal that we presented last year at the NWSSMM conference and appreciated how far we have come since then. Almost immediately after the conference, it was scholar’s week at WWU where Maren and I presented our poster again and presented for the Faculty/Student Group Collaboration. At all these presentations, we discussed our preliminary results and the next steps for our project.
Since last month, Maren and I have made a lot of progress! From the distance accumulation data, we were able to determine that all of the male dominated haul out sites are within 3 km of a marina. This may provide evidence that males harbor seals are more risk-tolerant that females and suggest that females may be utilizing more “protected” haul out sites. Since not every marina and salmon run are weighed evenly, Maren and I have also been testing ways to quantify marina and salmon run “density.” After lots of trial and error we are hoping to get guidance from Dr. Andy Bunn soon as he is an expert on spatial analysis. Maren and I are graduating soon, and we have been organizing our data and preparing our project to be outside of the full support of WWU. It’s exciting to watch our project evolve but we are trying to use that research journal and ArcGIS Pro free access for as long as we can!
We have also started to see more activity in the Whatcom Creek waterway with the return of the Smolt Project. New and old lab members have been working hard at dawn and dusk to collect behavioral data on the harbor seals before, during and after the release of the Pacific salmon smolt from Bellingham Technical Colleges Hatchery. I have personally seen many exciting things on these observations like jumping sea lions, snacking river otters, and many many harbor seals. I only have a few more observations left until I graduate, and I am cherishing every moment of field work. It is bittersweet to think that my time as an undergraduate will be over soon, but I am excited to see what the next chapter holds!
Until next month,
Haley
Haley and Maren at the NSWWMM Conference, hosted by WWU. Photo by C. Bentley.
Alexandrea's Blog
Alexandrea Otto, graduate student
1 June 2025
Whhhhale hello there,
It’s time for “species session”! One aspect of marine mammal strandings is engaging with the public and to help identify species that are reported either when photos are not available to confirm or when educating others so they themselves can identify species in the future, feel empowered, and hopefully share what they learned to those around them the next time! Identifying species is important as not all animals reported are protected marine mammals or species of conservation concern therefore its important to identify species quickly to determine what other information is needed or the next steps to take in the report to conserve time and resources. Sometimes if it’s not a protected marine mammal or species of concern, the best course of action after reporting/documentation is to simply let nature take its course and let other animals scavenge the body for nutrients to go back into the ecosystem and mother Earth.
Let’s warm up with an easy one!
Seals vs Sea Lions:
o Seals (like harbor seals) are part of a group called Phocid (family Phocidae) and considered “true seals”. The best way to identify them is their lack of ear flaps. Seals will just have holes on their head for ears and lack the external feature.
- · Out of water, seals are not able to use their fore flippers to sit themselves up and will move across the beach galumphing or somewhat “scooching/inch worming”. Seals hind limbs cannot rotate like sea lions.
- · Seals have a uniform, banded, or spotted fur coloration. Harbor seals are relatively small.
- · Additionally, seals fore flippers are relatively small with 5 claws.
o Sea lions (like Steller and California sea lions) are part of a group called Otariid (family Otariidae) and are called “eared seals”. Sea lion species will have external ear flaps present and often vocalize as “barking”!
- · Out of water, sea lions hind limbs can rotate forward and they will often use their flippers to sit up or move across the beach in more of a “waddling” locomotion.
- · Sea lions have more of a uniform fur coloration. Steller and California sea lions are bigger than harbor seals.
- · Additionally, sea lion fore flippers are relatively large (about 1/4th of their body length) with remnant claws.
Now the difference between Steller and California sea lions can be trickier…
o Steller sea lions have far bigger fore flppers than California sea lions, almost like “oar-sized”. Sometimes this difference is often what I first notice when distinguishing between species as I’ve found it most helpful assessing across sexes and ages.
- · Steller sea lions have more of a two-tone fur coloration sometimes with dark to reddish undersides and light tan coloration on top.
- · Steller sea lions nose shape is broad with skull shapes more flat and stocky.
- · A really obvious and neat difference when distinguishing between deceased animals or skulls is their teeth (or dental records, like in humans!). Steller sea lions have a gap (diastema) between their upper jaw molars.
o California sea lions are smaller in size in comparison to Steller sea lions. The biggest tell is that male California sea lions have a sagittal crest or visible forehead bump! This bump is part of their skull and helps with bite force!
- · California sea lions usually have one coloration of fur across their body. Males are dark brown/black, while females and juveniles are tan.
- · California sea lions nose and head shapes are much more pointy.
- · California sea lions do not present a gap between their molars /premolars.
Maybe next “species session” we can dive into otters (sea otters verse river otters) or even fur seals in Washington (Guadalupe verse northern fur seals)!
Til nex time,
Alex
Camryn's Blog
Camryn Sumrok, undergraduate student
1 June 2025
Hello!
We are nearing the end of spring quarter! It’s been a challenging and exciting spring filled with observations and school-work. The smolt project is now complete as of May 31st and I am so beyond proud of myself and Mallory as well as all of the research assistants in the lab. It has been amazing getting to know all of our new recruits and bond over our passion for marine mammals!
This summer, I aim to participate in as many marine science volunteer opportunities as I can. I am also searching for a new summer job, hopefully one that involves research and the environment. Completing excessive amounts of data entry for the smolt project is also on my summer agenda. Mallory and I have 1 week of chum post-release data, 1 week of Chinook pre-release data, 1 week of active Chinook release data, and 8 days of Chinook post-release data. I will be enlisting lab members to help with data input.
During the project, I witnessed many amazing harbor seal behaviors including hunting/foraging and socializing. We noticed that the Log Pond site had significantly more harbor seal activity than the Whatcom Creek site. Mallory and I had the privilege of watching the employees/students from the Bellingham Technical College release the chinook salmon! We ventured to the creek at 10 pm the night of the release and watched the workers in their waders guiding the smolt into a centralized location where they were discharged into the water. It was truly a miraculous event to watch and I would love to be involved in it in the future.
I hope everyone has had a great spring quarter! Good luck with studying and finals! To those graduating, we will miss you very much. Goodbyes will be very hard, but I am confident all of our seniors will go on to do amazing things and change the world. Thank you for everything!
Until next time,
Camryn
Victoria's Blog
Victoria Vinecke, graduate student
1 June 2025
Hello everyone!
It has been an extremely busy and rewarding month to say the least. May started in full swing with the NWSSMM Conference! It took a ton of collaboration over the span of multiple months, and I am so thankful to work alongside such hard-working undergraduate and graduate students. The conference would not have been as smooth without the hard work and determination from everyone on the planning committee. It would be remiss if I did not thank our wonderful PI Alejandro for securing funding and all the other aspects he assisted with! At the conference I was awarded best student oral presentation which is such an honor to be chosen by your peers. During the conference we got into some shenanigans. Below you can enjoy a photo of Alejandro and I dressed as marine mammals!
Photo of Alejandro (Orca) and Victoria (Seal) at NWSSMM Conference. Photo by C. Bentley.
After the conference I have been hard at work wrapping up my first field season for my second project: Assessing the capabilities to genetically identify individual harbor seals via eDNA! I plan to sample more in the fall in Bellingham for the second field season. Besides conducting field work I have also been working hard in the lab, getting the last chunk of lab work completed for my thesis. I am happy to report that my all lab work is officially done! I have a little bit of observational data analysis to wrangle but besides that I will be dedicating the next couple months to finish writing up my thesis and hopefully defend late summer! Below is a photo of me at Nisqually Estuary with an Eccentric Sand Dollar I found while attempting to capture harbor seals for my second project.
Photo of Victoria at Nisqually Estuary with Eccentric Sand Dollar, Photo by A. Otto.
Until next month,
Victoria