Orientations and Oceans!

Name: Karagan Ross
Class Year: Class of 2020
Hometown: Nashport, Ohio
Internship: Marine Research Intern
Location: Oceans Research, Mossel Bay, Western Cape, South Africa

Hanging out with Emma!

Greetings from South Africa! I have just finished the first week of my month-long internship here at Oceans Research, and I can't believe how quickly it has gone. I am one of the four Marine Research interns for the month of May, and we live together in the "intern house", which can hold up to 24 interns! The house has a beautiful ocean view and all of the shark information and pictures your heart can desire. It has quickly become home base for all of us, and when we aren't out working you can find us eating some amazing home-cooked meals from the house cook or playing with the house dog, Emma.

The sunset from the porch is breathtaking!

 Monday through Friday we work from 8am-6pm, with a 2-hour break for lunch, and every morning and afternoon each intern is assigned to a shift."Chum" has quickly become the personal favorite shift for us interns. During Chum, we load onto Oceans' research vessel, Mako, and set out with a camera and a GoPro to collect data on great white sharks. We use the GoPro to get footage of the ventral side of sharks to determine whether they are male or female by looking for claspers, the male reproductive organ. We also take pictures of the shark's dorsal fin to look for pigmentation, scarring, or other identification features. These pictures and videos, along with any other data collected during the shift, are entered into a computer after our shift and are stored in a database with all previous chumming trips. Oceans isn't just about sharks though! Some of our other shifts include tag-and-release sea fishing, dolphin surveys, tidal pool population studies, and husbandry shifts at the local aquarium. Every day is a new shift, and each shift is completely different from the last, so you never know exactly what you will be doing that day!

Our first day here was filled with orientations and lessons to prepare us for our upcoming month. We met the six field specialists who work for Oceans Research, and also learned about each of the projects we would be working on. After lunch, we went down to the harbor to activate our harbor passes, and practice some of the boat skills we had learned that morning (such as how to drop an anchor and tie-off the boat). We were even lucky enough to watch a seal predate on an octopus as we were leaving the harbor! We then headed to the local aquarium and became familiar with the species which they housed. Once we became oriented with the locations and projects, we were finally able to start our first shifts!

We were able to snap a couple of pictures after cleaning out the shark tank!

On the first day of our work, I was sent down to the aquarium with another intern to do some general husbandry. The majority of our time was spent catching sand shrimp to feed to the resident triggerfish and performing water changes to their tanks. Sand shrimp are tiny, transparent crustaceans which live in the small intertidal pools along the beach, so they are hard to spot without paying close attention. Every 15 minutes, we would stop catching shrimp in order to change out some of the triggerfish's water. Afterwards, we fed blue mussels (an invasive species!) to the starfish in the aquarium, making sure to avoid to greedy octopus Indigo while doing so. Then, we were able to clean out the windows of the smooth-hound shark tank! The aquarium offers a "swim with the sharks" encounter, so we were easily able to clean off their windows while they swam around us. The water was only 20 degrees Celsius though, so afterwards we enjoyed a coffee on the beach. We even saw a rock hyrax enjoying some grass in front of the aquarium!

Watching the puffer fish necropsy!

Our afternoon was spent learning about the proper technique to use while tag-and-release fishing. We learned how to build a trace (the way to connect a hook and sinker to your fishing line), what types of measurements we would be taking, and how to properly release any animals we had tagged. After our lesson, we got to watch a field specialist perform a necropsy on a puffer fish! The puffer fish, Tetraodon nigrivitis, belonged to Oceans' director, and had suddenly died that day in his aquarium. Fun fact: this species of puffer fish has the smallest known vertebrate genome, yet has the same number of genes as a human! After studying the fish, they noticed that the gills and heart of the fish were very white, indicating they had no blood in them. The field specialist determined that the fish had the equivalent of a heart attack, which led to its death. I had never watched a necropsy on an aquatic animal, so getting to learn the inner anatomy of the puffer fish was such an exciting experience!

Collecting data on the eagle ray!

We were finally able to get out on the boat on our second day of work. Our morning was spent chumming for great white sharks, and was just as amazing as I had hoped it would be! We only saw 2 sharks during our 3-hour trip, and were only able to collect data for one. That shark, however, was within sight of our boat for an 1 1/2 hours! Being able to see a shark that close up was absolutely mind-blowing, and reinforced my excitement for the rest of this month! After studying our GoPro videos, we determined the shark was a juvenile female. For our afternoon shift, we headed back out to Mako to try our hand at sea fishing! After practicing the traces we had learned the day before, we baited up and got to work. Unfortunately, we only had 5 catches during our 4-hour trip, and only 2 of them were species of interest. We caught a juvenile smooth-hound shark, which we took length measurements of and collected a genetic sample from before releasing. Our most exciting catch was an eagle ray with a disc width of 75cm! These rays have a large barb on their tail, so we first had to make sure we wrapped a towel around the tail to prevent any injuries to ourselves. We also collected a genetic sample from this ray, and tagged it using a small, thin tag aptly called a spaghetti tag. The ray was our final catch of the day, so we were able to end the day on a strong note!

Pumpkin pancakes from an all-vegan food stall!

After our shift Friday night we had a welcome braai, which is Afrikaans for barbecue. The house cook prepared amazing South African cuisine, which we enjoyed around a fire on the house's back porch. South Africa is currently in their winter months, but their winter is nothing like an Ohio winter. The daily temperature has stayed around 22 degrees Celsius, which makes for beautiful sunny working conditions! We have weekends free, so Saturday morning us interns headed to a farmers market about an hour away from campus. The market was full of homemade arts and crafts, and delicious homegrown produce. We were able to shop for friends and family (and ourselves too!), and enjoy some amazing food from the different vendors around the market. When we aren't going on an excursion, we take a 15-minute walk down to the beach and enjoy the beautiful weather. While the water is a little too cold to swim in, we are still able to enjoy some sunshine and the beautiful scenery. This is only the beginning of our month of adventures, so be sure to check in to my future blog posts for more updates!