Beam Reach

The spring class embarks!

FHL to Jones Island

OK, we didn’t discover giant squid, but the students did get a chance at the helm of the Gato Verde.  The students were very efficient in moving all of the gear and food out of S1 and onto the Gato Verde so that we made a good start from FHL.  We even got a chance to see Anne Harmon one of our students from 2007 on the dock at FHL.  She is now working for Kwiaht, the Center for Historical Ecology of the Salish Sea.  The journey was a smooth one under partly cloudy skies.  Transited under electric power and tied up easily to the mooring bouy on the south end of Jones.

Fisheries and Acoustics at Penn State

After several years of “regrouping” (a.k.a. child-rearing) I will finally take the next step toward my academic goal this coming fall.  I’m entering the Master’s program in Wildlife and Fisheries Science at Penn State.  Thanks to ongoing encouragement from Jason, Scott, Val, and Celia (of course!), and a lucky posting on MARMAM last spring, I found my advisor, Dr. Jennifer Miksis-Olds, who works jointly with the Graduate Program in Acoustics and the Wildlife and Fisheries department at Penn State.  I will be supported through the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State and am excited to be the first master’s student in Wildlife and Fisheries to receive ARL support (thanks to my acoustics background via BR).  I hope to set a good example for that partnership, and also to raise interest in Beam Reach at Penn State.

My research project will use acoustics to study sport fish populations in local Pennsylvania lakes following habitat restoration.  Current study practices utilize “electro-fishing” techniques and will provide a comparison.  Acoustics should allow a less intrusive and more sustainable approach to fisheries management.  How does that relate to Southern Residents?  I plan use the acoustic and fisheries experience I gain from this project to investigate salmon populations in the Salish Sea.  Examining the salmon populations was actually one of my 20 questions on day one in ’05…  imagine that!  🙂

Best wishes to the new Beam Reach spring class of 2009! 

(Hang on to those questions)

Dominique Walk in local paper

Dominique Walk (081) was featured today in her home town newspaper, the Reporter (Greenfield, Massachusetts).  Thanks to her mother, Marie-Francoise Walk, for sending in the clipping pictured here: